life lessons – Page 7

My sister Rachel hanging out in our front yard with our infamous cat, Floof.

Life is stressful. Especially in American culture, I’ve found that our time is filled with a list of things to do and accomplish. Relaxation seems to be either a thing we have to squeeze into our schedules, or somewhat of a silhouette of its true meaning. When we spend too much time trying to seek out relaxation in the form of Netflix, surfing the internet, and picking up the controller, we don’t feel satisfied and refreshed afterwards, and the list pops up again.

My suggestion? Pick up a book. Go outside and take a walk. If it’s dark out, grab a friend and go stargazing. There are so many fun and creative things to do outside of screen time, if you choose to do something out of the ordinary, you’ll feel much better for it.

God controls everything. From the moment we are born to the final breath we take, we have been given the opportunity to make choices to follow his lead, or turn from that path to pursue our own satisfaction.

I had a talk with my roommate this morning about what brings true satisfaction to life. We agreed that the stories we choose to write can be full of easy and comfortable decisions in the moment, but further down the road these choices stack up to a weak foundation of what we’ve become.

This telephone pole has seen bits and pieces of many stories. Countless staples remind me of all the people that put them there.

Almost all good stories involve conflict. Some obstacle in the hero’s way. Without this conflict, the reader is not drawn into the story, and the protagonist becomes a mere shadow of his or her true character. The same is true with our own lives. Sometimes we must make the hard decision to pursue what is right though it may mean a hit to our reputation or pride. In retrospect we begin to see that these conflicts, “stick it to the man” decisions, add a unique meaning to our story. We grow because of it.

In lieu of finals week and graduation, I encourage you to take a moment and reflect on the story you’ve written, as well as the story you want to write.

With the intention of evading the onslaught of homework this weekend, my brother and I decided to go camping. A slight breeze sifted through the air as we stepped out of our little 2001 Toyota Corolla and into the Pawnee Grasslands of Northeastern Colorado. As we peered into the grassy landscape we could make out two massive towers of rock looming in the distance, sentinels of some unknown land beyond. Obviously they were begging to be climbed, so Ben and I trekked through the shin high grass to do just that. We almost gave up, but finally managed to find a primitive ladder carved into the tan rock on the far side of one of the buttes.

Unlike the mountainous expanse that usually baffles me when I go hiking above timberline, this view was quite different. Stark grassland stretched as far as the eye could see. The breeze had picked up, but was still somewhat bearable, so we set up our tent on the top of the tower, thinking it would be a perfect view of the stars at night (It was more a great view of the bright moon instead). The sun set. The wind picked up, and before we knew it we were trying to sleep in a tent that acted more like a sail than anything else, moving at will. I woke up in the middle of the night to the thin material separating me from the elements periodically clobbering the back of my head. As much as I tried to shift away from the side of the tent, some other part somehow found a way to batter me again. I remember vividly smiling and laughing to myself in the middle of the night due to my useless effort to get away from the wind. Finally, after God decided he’d had enough fun, I saw a faint light brimming the horizon and soon enough the sun peeked its golden face above the grassy fields.

Thinking of that night brings laughable memories of what could have been a terrible experience. Life is molded by perspective.

A shot of the mountain on our way back as the sun was dimming. Photo credit to Kent Warlick. Our third companion was Alton Luder.

I squinted out from behind the thin cotton hood of my jacket was greeted with an utterly breathtaking scene. Scattered across the landscape were numberless windswept peaks, like ridges on the back of some enormous beast, each blanketed with white snow. We had reached the summit.

In early January, 2016, I had the privilege of embarking upon my first winter ascent of a 14,000-foot peak in the southern region of Colorado – Mount Yale. After waking up to a great continental breakfast at a nearby Best Western, we parked our car at the trailhead around 7am. What luck! The wide corridor of packed snow told me the trail was going to be nicely packed the whole way up. Why not just leave our heavy snowshoes in the car? We looked to the east to see a brilliant sun peaking out from the horizon – a perfect day to hit this peak. After strapping microspikes to our boots, we set off down the trail.

Thirteen hours later our small and now disheveled group trudged back to the car with snow filled boots. I was exhausted and out one glove (which decided to take the fast way down the mountain) with a pocket full of red tissues from an unfortunate nose-bleed during our descent. Nearly halfway up the mountain, the trail petered out and we were left to wade through shin- to waist-high snow until the sun sank below the ridge line. The one thing that could have helped in this circumstance would have been a nice sturdy pair of snowshoes.

What’s the lesson from this experience? Be prepared! Always bring extra gear just in case on excursions like this, even if you don’t think you’ll use it.

Category: life lessons

Take a Break

Sometimes you have to laugh

Be Prepared