A young man walked past a familiar room to see his father sitting in his chair. It was an old leather chair, well-worn with the bodily impressions of the man and time. The son’s first memories of his father were the times spent on his knee. Then there was the endless time spent sitting crossed legged on the floor looking in awe as stories both true and fantastical were told. Then came the lessons, the education, and the endless patience. This was not just a selfish use of time reserved only for the son. No, many times over the years the son would find himself walking past the room as his father studied, counseled others from that chair. The son believed his father to be the most loving father, husband, friend, and boss. Those feelings were well founded. Formed over his life to that point. He heard the words and kindness offered to others. He witnessed the grace and love returned. He knew his father as a man of few words, but when he did speak, they were authentic and filled with authority and integrity. As the child grew to a boy and then a young man, some of the purpose began to become clear. In all that time, he realized the father had been handing him tools, teaching him to utilize them. Many lessons were one on one. Others were lessons observed in day to day interaction s. As life flew by the lessons became more pointed, more purposeful and powerful. One such lesson to serve as an example was teaching his son that failure was inevitable. It could be cruel and painful but not life defeating. Learning how to fail was just as important a lesson as succeeding. The son had a hard time learning that philosophical importance and didn’t like to fail. Heated at times the father would listen as the son would proclaim, “Only a loser fails, failure is embarrassing, I am not a looser and I hate to be humiliated!” The father remained calm in the face of the repeated attempts at teaching and the endless queries. He knew that a life well lived, using personal failures as teachable moments would penetrate the young mind one day. So, he would patiently remind him of a line from a book, a line the son would never forget. “Life is difficult.” The words of the author M. Scott Peck. He would follow that up by reminding the son that, “Nothing will hit you harder than life, who you are, who you become will be determined by your next action. Will you stay down or will you rise to become the man you were meant to be?”
One day, the father arose from his chair, walked to the door. A little slower with graying hair by now he reached the doorway and called out, “Son, can we talk?” Moments later, the son walked into the room and the father said, “Let’s take a ride.” As they drove there were no real words of significance shared. The son, having grown a little cocky with age began to realize that they really hadn’t spoken all that much lately and perhaps his father felt or believed the student had finally become the master. Instead of those once treasured words, music filled the empty space. Soon, the car began to slow and eventually stop and the father exited the car saying, “Come, follow me son.” The son, still a little confused exited the car and began to follow his father through tall pines that lead to a beautiful meadow. As they walked through the meadow the father began to speak. “Son, I am so proud of you, of the life you have lived and yes even some of the choices you made. Your mother and I put a roof over your head, fed you, loved you always and unconditionally. We educated you in the ways of the world physically, mentally, socially and spiritually. We praised your successes, bound your wounds when you fell or failed and even punished you when necessary. I know you believe that you’ve lived, and that your beginning was the day you were born.” The father stopped speaking and turned to his son. He let the silence continue as he watched his son stare up at a majestic mountain. The father broke the silence, “Your life, the one behind you, the path you walked to get here, standing in front of this mountain, that was your life. Standing here now looking forward, this is your new life, it begins again here and now.” The son was confused at first but knew that becoming a man meant that he would have to leave the comforts of what existed behind him. The father then said, “Your destiny lies on the other side of that mountain. The man I know you were meant to be will figure out your path now son.” Now concerned, uncertain of his ability, his resolve, worried that maybe he hadn’t listened and learned enough he looked to his father, “I don't know what to do. The mountain is too high, too wide, how will I ever find my destiny, be the man you claim to be so proud of?” With tears now streaming down the face of the father he embraced his son so intensely neither could breathe, he let go. Then looking deeply into his son’s eyes he said, “don't worry, you’ll figure it out, as I did and as my dad did.” And with that he walked away, down the path, leaving his son standing at the beginning of his life.
For what seemed like an eternity, the son stood looking, up, up and up. This was the first time he had ever been alone, ever had to contemplate all those things necessary to start his life let alone sustain one. His mother and father had taught him to always be prepared. A litany of phrases began to play like those old vinyl records he grew up listening to. Words of wisdom now replaced the dulcet tones of music that once filled a home and were replaced with words meant as lessons, warnings with an eye towards this day. He regretted deeply brushing off much of the wisdom with the hubris of a young man who believed he knew it all. Sayings like, “If you fail to plan then you should plan to fail;” “The man who believes he can’t, won’t;”…“Life is a marathon not a sprint.” There were so many that he just sat down and wished he had taken more seriously the admonitions of a father who had climbed his mountain. He was overwhelmed and soon found himself asleep.
Awaking the following morning, believing that the previous day never happened he arose and stretched and soon realized that this was not a bad dream. This was his life and figuring out how to scale his mountain he began to develop a plan. He thought, wait a minute, my dad’s life is a blue print, if he just followed that example he could not only survive, he could thrive. So, he turned around and began his journey back to civilization. He would continue his education and learn from others the secret of scaling one’s mountain. Perhaps he would find a mate who could assist him, maybe have a child or two. His pace quickened as he became excited to prove that like his father and his father’s father, he too would become the master of his own destiny.
The years passed quickly, he found jobs, went to school met and married a beautiful young lady, had two kids, first a daughter who became the apple of his eye, a true “Daddy’s Girl.” That was followed by the birth of his son, like his father had done for him he would teach his son in the ways of life, make his father proud by raising a son as his father had done. A son with resilience and strength. He packed the family up and made the drive back to his mountain. To his surprise things had changed, there were now tools and the mountain appeared to have been worked on, large pieces had been dug out and the son felt joy in his heart because he knew that his decision to leave with a plan and return bore results. Everything was falling into place, or so he thought. Over the coming years he attempted to continue the work, he would move that mountain, and reach his destiny. It would be hard work but he remembered the admonition of his father that, “Anything worth doing is worth doing well.” At the end of each day the son would measure the progress. Some days he felt as though he was on his way while other days left him feeling a real sense of futility. Frustrated he would take his disappointment out on his wife. He began to wander away from the hard work trying to find shortcuts, convincing himself that he was smarter and more progressive in his thinking than his father was.
Some perceived progress came in the form of trying to cheat the hard work required for advancement and believing that you could take the shortcut of living through better chemistry, code for substance abuse. Some shortcuts took the form of trying to get others to do the hard work for him. None of this worked and he found himself angry, blaming others and increasingly being cruel to those he loved, those who showed him unconditional trust. The house he had built became nothing more than a house of cards, a house with no real foundation, purpose or real meaning. All that was left was a note that stopped him dead in his tracks. The life he had fooled himself into was nothing more than the machinations of a man who failed to heed the carefully crafted lessons gifted to him by parents who had in fact lived the same life but who had carefully removed the unnecessary for the necessary. All of the lessons, the time spent providing the son with the incremental steps needed to build a solid foundation, a starting point capable of sustaining a good life well lived had been taken and used but resulted in failure. Life has a way of humbling you, knocking you down a few pegs and showing you that there are no shortcuts, there is no easy path up the mountain to your destiny.
That morning, finding that note, finding himself alone, truly alone, became a pivotal moment. He had failed, yet he reached back into a time long ago, to a lesson burned in his memory. His father had told him that failure was inevitable. He remembered his father’s words, “It could be cruel and painful but not life defeating.” Learning how to fail was just as important a lesson as succeeding. He reflected on the line from the author, “Life is difficult,” and remembered the words that followed, “Nothing will hit you harder than life, who you are, who you become will be determined by your next action. Will you stay down or will you rise to become the man you were meant to be?” Those words rang hollow now, the son was certain that this was his unique burden. Surely all that had been taught to him never accounted for this epic level of failure. The loss of his wife, his children only made him angrier now. He abandoned all efforts to conquer his mountain. He walked away, not towards the path that had brought him there, convinced the answers didn’t exist there, the moment his heart had been ripped from his chest, stomped on, shot and then dragged through the dirt of his efforts he began to wander a path away from all he knew, believing that his father, mother, and all those who had influenced him just didn’t understand him and could never feel the pain of this kind of failure. Set on proving his was a unique life alike none other he would take all the efforts of others and abandon them as he had abandoned his mountain and show everyone that he knew more. He would enter that stubborn phase of life on his own without any of the armor and tools, proving once and for all that at as a victim of his flawed upbringing, he and he alone would discover his life without any assistance or reliance on anyone in the past. He would walk his path alone, find his own destiny elsewhere. With contempt where his heart once dwelled he began his new life muttering, “I’ll show them, I’ll become the man I am meant to be on my own terms, I’ll be genuine now, authentically me rather than the version of me others tried and failed to make me.” He left everything and everyone in the rear-view mirror with a disdain reserved only for those who now tormented him, who he now was convinced had abandoned him.
Now on his own path the son began to re-educate himself, re-program the perceived flaws in the life he had left behind. He sought out the counsel of therapists, began reading self-help books and studying the writing of the Stoics. He found pearls of wisdom in the words of these great writers and thinkers. He learned that Stoics relied on nobody, that the Stoic tried to be self-reliant because the Stoic strived to be realistic. The words of Seneca, who understood that fortune is the most powerful force on earth realizing that she acts as she pleased, “she cares little for our plans or notions of what is fair.” The great Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus taught him that, “Instead of sitting around hoping for someone to fix this or make it right, try to find a way to come to terms with what has happened. Instead of expecting someone to come and relieve you, try to be the source of your own relief. Focus on the good you still have… focus on the good you can still do.” Stoicism taught him all that he believed at the time he needed to find his own destiny, away from that mountain that he now viewed as the source of all his misery. It was the mountain’s fault. It was the fault of everything taught to him that lead him to the foot of that mountain. To that time in his life that caused him such pain, such loss and he vowed to never return again.
These teachings from his personal journey and those he now called his mentors. The therapists, counselors, authors who helped him find out how to love himself and subvert the harshness of life through positive thinking and yes even the great stoics would be his new armor and their words his new tools. He boldly walked a path and experienced some success. However, after many seasons had come to pass he stopped walking, sat down in his path and began to reflect. His reflections spanned his life and again he found himself staring into the calm waters of a lake, smooth like a giant pane of glass. He looked deeply into the water, deeply into himself and even deeper into his soul. Again, the words of whom he now called his people bubbled to the surface. It wasn’t the therapists or the counselors or the dime store authors with their feel-good approach to life. No, he found himself thinking about his old mentors, the stoics who in the end truly understood life, the realities of life. Their’s were not the words that made him necessarily feel better. Instead he found their words to be the most real of them all. Words like those of Marcus Aurelius, “You could leave life right now, let that determine what you do and say and think." Reinforcing the words of Marcus came into focus in his mind. Two Latin words, simple yet powerful, “Memento Nori.” Translated it meant the you could leave life right now. This brought him to a point where he began to think that in fact he could leave this life right now. Who would care if he just filled his backpack and pockets with rocks and walked into what he was believing to be his destiny. Walk into the pristine lake and sink to the bottom, his destiny would be that of death. He picked up the first rock and held it in his hand. He tossed the rock between his two hands as he peered out into the water. Stopping he looked down at the rock that would signify his determination of what he believed was his destiny. He began to turn the rock over and over in his hand contemplating his final destination. He reached for his backpack to begin to fill it with rocks but stopped before putting the stone in. He stared at that rock for what seemed like an eternity. Glancing up as the sun began to set, seeing the beauty of where he was, right there, right now his heart began to fill and tears began to stream down his cheeks. And then as suddenly as this pity party had begun he rose and threw the rock into the water. It splashed and a series of congruent circles radiated outwards.
It was then that the words of all those he had sought out left his mind and were replaced with a lesson his father had taught him. His father had explained that a life well lived consisted of a series of congruent circles, anything else was just chaos and noise. He explained that the rock hitting the water was emblematic of birth and the succeeding circles that emanated, from the first smaller one to all those that followed needed, demanded to be perfect circles. It was at that moment the son realized that he had disturbed the balance by throwing more and more rocks into the water creating a chaotic pattern in the water of his life. That same old phrase “Life is Difficult” began to echo in his head. Was there redemption? Could one begin again, fresh and new? Memories of his father and his mother began to pour into his head one after another like a waterfall. Memories like his father reminding him that in life it isn’t about how you begin, it only demands that you finish well. Memories from his mother came to the surface. Hers were lessons of love and redemption, the power to be the captain of your own ship with the ability to course correct and get your ship back on course. He decided to spend the night right there, watching the sun as it set on the now placid waters of the undisturbed lake. Tomorrow he thought, tomorrow I will rise and begin again the search for my destiny. Tonight, he would savor the new epiphanies that had brought the lessons of his youth and those he had collected. He would find the mechanism that would meld the two into an even stronger armor, an armor uniquely his. He would now recognize the tools that he had been given to begin his journey and add them to the tools he had worked so hard to develop on his own. Those handed to him by loving and caring parents who realized potential in a son who needed to discover it on his own. Make that breakthrough on his journey, in his own timeframe despite the worries of parents who set their child free. Set him free into a cold cruel world with nothing more than their faith. To seek unabated the destiny that awaited him. He knew deep in his being that this was watershed moment that he did not want to waste.
With the warmth of the sun now at his back he arose. He stretched and felt a new rekindled sense of self and purpose, he began to walk his path once again. Nothing could stop him, he had seen and experienced all. Making his way along the shoreline and eventually into tall pines, filled with brush and overgrowth. It was a difficult journey due to the terrain and pitfalls of a road less traveled. Undeterred he marched forward and eventually the brush cleared, the trees thinned out and he dipped low to get past a fallen tree. Now standing and brushing off the thorns, pine needles and dirt, he set his gaze on a meadow, smaller than the one he had once walked with his father so many decades ago. He now turned his gaze to the sky. There in front of him was his mountain. He began to walk slowly towards the mountain he had abandoned. A mountain that he had blamed for everything bad that had happened to him and those memories now flooded his head. Painful memories of loss, devastation and a life he believed he had left behind him. Yet there he stood looking up and up and his being was filled once again with fear, uncertainty and a lot of self-doubt. Standing there he turned his gaze back to the base of the mountain. Everything was different. The work, the failures, the loss, the pain, everything was gone and for a time it was the only thing he could focus on.
Filled with anxiety and frustration he began to reflect once again on his life. He asked himself, why did my parents bring me up in their ways? Why did they teach me to be physically, mentally, socially and spiritually strong? What was the purpose of all the lessons from the gentle to the harshest realities? Why go through all of that only to abandon me at the foot of this Godforsaken mountain? What was the purpose of departing the mountain, setting out on a journey and a destination of his own creation? Was he being punished because he tried things his way rather than following perfectly the plan handed to him? Why did he arrive here, right here in this moment after seeming to have figured everything out? Was it even possible to figure it all out? His mind raced to answer the questions coming at him like 100-mile an hour fastballs, one after the other. It was beginning to feel like too much so he lay his head back, resting on his backpack, his only possession. Eventually he slept, it was a rough sleep replete with the battles of demons and angels. Light flashed, he found himself in the darkest, deepest place he could imagine. His subconscious was working in overdrive and his life played on a screen like some weird Fellini-esque film where he was a character, a bit player reading from someone else’s script. Later he awoke feeling more tired than ever and more confused than before his fitful night.
However, somewhere in the chaos of dreams that tend to haunt, pearls began to surface. Maybe, somewhere in the fog of dreams, bits and pieces of reality pierced the veil and the Master Weaver of life, our version of a higher power, lets leak through that which we need to be nudged in the right direction. Somewhere in the dream he remembered once again the words of the author his father had drilled into his mind, “Life is difficult.” He found himself muttering what always seemed to follow those words as his father spoke them. “Nothing will hit you harder than life, who you are, who you become will be determined by your next action.” Was his father a sage or perhaps a modern-day stoic? Had his journey matched his father’s? Things began to become clear. The son was exactly where his path had intended him to be. His path, while unique to him perhaps held many of the pitfalls that lead him down the exact same road less traveled that his father had walked. A new realization hit him like a bolt of lightning thrown by the Greek God Zeus. He didn’t actually witness his father’s journey, his traumas, his failures and successes. He only knew his parents as the people they had decided to share with him. They chose to raise him to be better than them. They simply took out the bad and replaced it with the lessons, with the necessary rather than sharing the unnecessary. The son soon realized that he believed he may have figured this thing called life out.
It was now time, time to throw away the unnecessary in favor of pursuing a life well lived. He approached to find that his majestic mountain had changed. Where all of his failed work to move the mountain had been filled back in. Where the tunnel or shortcut he had dug in the hope of doing the easier work of going through rather than over had been filled in. What was now there were very sturdy well-built steps with an iron hand rail. He looked up the stairs as far as he could see and then began to ascend the stairs. With each step, the unnecessary that had filled his back pack began to disappear. Farther up the mountain he met and married his Kiwi, to those who count know her she is Kelly, his better and more complete half. As they walked up they built weigh stations where could rest and reflect, make what would now be their plan, together. Along the way the son cleaned his life and his mind up. He began to become the resilient man his parents had raised him to be. One day his long-lost daughter joined him on his journey and soon after that his son found his way to them. Now, perhaps somewhere that was one third of the way up he turned around to look at the meadow, over that tops of the tall pines to another mountain. Atop that mountain was a beautiful home. The door opened and his parents walked out. Much older now the father put his hands to his mouth and shouted across the great divide, “We knew you would figure it out son.” The son sat down and cried tears of joy. He wasn’t there yet, at the top of his mountain, but, he was on his way and he and his Kiwi tried to impart the lessons they had learned much the same way the son had been taught by his parents. Together they built their futures. Life had come full circle and the father looked back to the son and cried as he put his arm around his lovely bride. They are going to make it. And with that they turned and walked back into the house they had built atop their mountain with the belief and faith that one day they would visit their son and witness for themselves a life well lived by a son they had set free.
The End
Yet the Beginning
Takeaway…. What is your takeaway from this story? For me, it is simple. Our path is ours alone. Our parent(s) or those who influenced our early years did their best. They set us free to find our way, discover a path that is ours. We succeed and fail but along the way steps up our mountain are being built until that day the path we have chosen leads us back to the mountain that is our destiny to conquer. I will leave you with a quote I wrote long ago, during my journey:
Are you who you want to be or are you busy being the version of you that others want you to be? It is an important question since you will be judged in the end based on the life you lived and the person you were. You own your life so take responsibility for it.
By
E.L. Burton
**The picture below is of a person staring up at a very large mountain
