Saturday 31 March 2012

Climbing mountains one step at a time

Mt Kilimanjaro


One of my colleagues is blogging about her epic journey to summit Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania, the highest mountain in Africa and the fourth highest in the world. Wow - now that's inspiring!
She and a friend are currently preparing for this experience which will happen in July. She is doing all of this and using it as an opportunity to raise funds for the South African Cystic Fibrosis Trust in memory of a friend who passed away from this debalitating disease. Follow her journey at  http://walking4air.wordpress.com/

What an inspiration! The thing about Lara is she has this incredible lust for life, an enthusiasm and positive energy that just astounds me. I want to be like that!

I have what my psychologist terms a 'depressive personality', so being positive and upbeat does not always come easy to me, and to be honest naturally cheerful, positive, upbeat people like Lara sometimes just downright get on my nerves. I want to scream at them, "Oh for goodness sake, will ya have a bad day just once!" It just isn't normal to be SO happy ALL the time! Is it?

So part of this journey I am on is going to involve trying to become excited about life again. I was once that way, but something inside me died the day I first walked into a 9-5, cubicle job. As time progressed and I found myself on a career path that I found boring and that did not stimulate or fulfil me, my spirit died.

I do remember a time I was filled with enthusiasm, energy, spirit and fire. Yes, I was once that person. I had drive, I was a go-getter, the world was my oyster. Slowly the fire went out. It is amazing how not living authentically and following your true purpose can kill you. Being the living dead is worse than actually being dead.
"Death is not the greatest loss in life. The greatest loss is what dies inside of us while we live.'   Norman Cousins - Quoted in History of Sikh Struggles (1989) by Gurmit Singh, p. 189


So I need to get excited about life again! Since I resigned I have to say that for the first time in 18 years I feel alive again! The next day I felt free, liberated, calm. It was like the world looked new - I looked out my apartment window at the sea and mountain and the colours seemed brighter.
Despite the uncertainty of what lies ahead, I have an inexplicable excitement about my new life. I just have this good feeling in the pit of stomach - something good is on its way, I can feel it. I am feeling so excited at the new possibilities. I cannot explain why, but since I handed in my resignation and it became 'real', the unknown has gone from being something scary to something exciting. All of a sudden not knowing what awaits me on this path is thrilling!

I want to capitalise on this new feeling. I want to try living in the moment, something that I find very hard to do. I want to stop worrying about the future, stressing about problems that haven't yet happened. I want to throw myself into this journey having absolute faith in the fact that things will all work out for the best and that better things are in store for me. I want to go forward exuding positive energy which will attract positive things.

Will I falter at times? Definitely. Will anxiety creep in sometimes? Absolutely. Will I have my 'down' days? I have no doubt I will. But baby steps are required. Slowly but surely I will keep practising positive thinking. I will have faith.

I will start changing my way of thinking from today.  Lara has a physical mountain to climb, I have a mental one. Both of us are on an epic journey in very different ways.

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