Bike on Sun, Dec 06
39.46 mi (16.3 mph)Three Mountains, Three Men
Friday, April 23rd, 2010Once, there was a young man. He was walking in the wilderness and saw three mountains in the distance. As he was a curious person above everything else, he walked toward the mountains. Along the way, he noticed two sets of footsteps, each set heading toward its own mountain. One of the mountains was pristine and had no footsteps leading toward it. Now the young man didn’t like to climb mountains. It was hard work and playing on the plains and among the foothills was much more fun, anyway. Instead, the young man walked slowly around the mountains, keeping careful track of the footsteps he had seen before. He noticed that both sets of footsteps went straight up its own mountain. He could not, however, see the peak of the mountains from his vantage point, so the footsteps disappeared from view as he got close to them.
After several years, the young man made his way around to the other side of the mountains. He could now see the peaks of all three mountains and he noticed something that made him wonder. Only one of the mountains had footsteps leading down from the peak. He followed those footsteps for a while and noticed that they didn’t seem to lead anywhere. Again, curious, he wondered what happened to the footsteps from the other mountain, so he looked to the very top of the mountain and saw a man sitting at its peak. He yelled up to the man, “Why have you not come down from your mountain?” The man replied, “It took me a long time to climb this mountain, I like the view, and I don’t want to climb it again, so I decided to stay.” The young man yelled again, “May I climb your mountain so that I can see what you can see?”
The man at the top of the mountain thought about this for a while and then replied, “You may not climb my mountain, for I have already climbed it. But there is another mountain very close to this one that you may climb. I cannot climb it for you, but I will tell you how if you listen.”
Discouraged, the young man decided he didn’t want to climb a mountain of his own. Instead, he wandered once again on the plains and among the foothills, but always kept an eye on the man, still perched atop his peak. Years passed and the young man grew older. He became tired of his never-changing view of the plains and foothills. Once again, he came to the man sitting on top of his mountain. He yelled to the man,”I’m ready to climb my mountain now. Where do I begin?” The man replied, “Young man, this is the easiest and hardest thing you’ll ever hear. You have known how all along. You must first take a step, and then another step, and another after that. But you will be walking uphill, so you must try a little harder than you did when you were walking along the plains, and you must make all of your footsteps head toward the peak, otherwise you will lose sight of the peak and become lost.
“You may have seen another mountain close by. The man who climbed that mountain lost sight of the peak, walked right down the other side of the mountain, and is now lost. You must climb the mountain while you are still young, for it is much better to enjoy your years as a wiser man sitting atop the mountain than it is to just be an old man and still be climbing toward the peak.”
So the young man, who was now turning into a man, took a step toward the peak of his mountain, and then another, and another. Some steps were not taken directly toward the peak, but each one was a little closer to the peak than the ones before it. The wiser man, who still enjoyed his view, enjoyed it even more now, for he knew that the younger man would soon have a view of his own.
4/12/2001
