Fourteen Peaks

If I’m completely honest, the last couple years have been a tough stretch of time (though not without some amazing highlights) and I haven’t liked who I’ve been in much of it. Occasionally, when I’m trying to pump myself up a little—hey, you did write a book in 2020, hey you brushed your hair, hey you stepped out of your comfort zone just now, hey, hey, I think of Fezik’s exclamation to Westley in The Princess Bride, “You just shook your head, that doesn’t make you happy?”

And while, despite Westley’s sardonic reply, there is absolute beauty in appreciating every moment, movement, and the small achievements that move me onward (after all, haven’t most of us been mostly dead all day too?), there is also something majestic in going after some crazy thing and in trying the impossible.   

I haven’t had a crazy thing in a while. And I don’t like that. I fear that I’ve fallen into the trap of learned helplessness and gotten stuck in a pattern of inactivity. I don’t like that at all.

There’s nothing like discomfort to make me squirm. Insert metamorphosis example here. For instance, caterpillars turn into goop before becoming butterflies, yes, yes. But really, who likes being goop? In the uncomfortable process of trying to shed the skin of the me that is brittle, old, and scaly, I have been working on my physical, mental, and emotional health. Though I may have just switched analogies from caterpillars to snakes (or cicadas). My life, like my analogies are not straightforward. Transformation is a process. Some days, it seems more impossible than others.

One afternoon, I see a video clip for a film about the Nepalese mountaineer Nirmal Purja who set out to summit all fourteen 8000-meter peaks in under seven months. This is an outstanding, unbelievable feat. The peaks include such giants as Everest and K2. The only other person to have done this did it over a span of 17 years.  

Feeling restless, needing to view the world from snowy heights, and wanting to see the insanely amazing things humans do, I (easily) talk my parents into watching it with me. Following Purja as he seeks to accomplish his Project Possible, Fourteen Peaks: Nothing is Impossible is a testament to the unquenchable spirit and the pursuit of a wild dream. Purja’s exuberance and joy are inspiring. His belief in his project allows him to keep going even when he has to mortgage his house or try and convince the Chinese government to open up a mountain just for him and his team to climb.

Spoiler alert: he succeeds. And his success is my success, is all our success in the way that shared triumph and the completion of a hard task is a collective success. For it heats up that core of possibility inside us and fires the engine.

His achieving an impossible goal reminds me that, as Impact Theory’s Tom Bilyeu says, human potential is nearly limitless. After a feat like that, what other limits can he push beyond? On that same note, of course, someone asks Purja the inevitable question that is always asked at the end of some huge thing, “What’s next, mate?”

“Next we go even bigger,” he says. “Just wait and see.”

And I know I’ll be cheering for him no matter what he chooses to do.

More importantly, as I go about my evening routines, I’m pushed to ask again for the first time in a while: What is my Fourteen Peaks?

What insane, amazing, inspiring, challenging thing will I do next? I’ve let that learned helplessness keep me in place too long. And now I’m more than ready to venture out into adventure and the unknown. What’s next for me? To echo Purja, I don’t know yet, but next I’ll go even bigger. Just wait and see.

 

A crazy thing doesn’t have to be as wild or potentially deadly as climbing mountains past their Death Zones, it can be as simple as starting down the path toward a new skillset, doing that little thing that pushes you just outside your comfort zone, reading something that encourages you to learn or grow, trying something new, visiting that place in nature that’s been calling your soul, or fill in the blank. So, as I turn toward creativity, opportunity, and the formation of my next big dream, I’ll ask you: What is your Fourteen Peaks?