How many times would you say you have completely surrendered to the moment? You freed your self from obligations, judgment, expectations, physical pain, and everything else that occupies our minds 99% of the day. How many times in the past year have you accomplished this?
Yesterday, I experienced one of those moments. I was fortunate enough to be part of a group of five friends who hiked to the tower at the top of Mohonk Mountain in New Paltz, NY. It was an impromptu day trip that organically came together. Everyone was free on this random Tuesday in April, and as soon as we set off on our journey, it was magic. There was no trail for the first four miles. My friend, Dana, led the way using just her memory. We walked through mud, thorn patches, farms, private property, and steep, unmarked trails. When we finally came across the actual trails, one was red but chained off with a sign that said, “Trail closed for the season.” We walked on the flat trail for half a mile, but Dana wanted us to experience the Lemon Squeeze, which was a labyrinth of boulders, so we ignored the closed trail sign. We ventured through these incredible rock formations:
Dana let us know when it was going to get a little more challenging, but like a true leader, she reminded us to follow our hearts and trust our bodies. We squeezed through caves and crevices and reached the final part of the Lemon Squeeze that required us to climb three or four wooden ladders in a narrow crevice. It felt like we were in an ad for Patagonia. We could not see what was waiting for us at the top, so one by one, as we each pushed ourselves off the final segment of the ladders, we each experienced our own moment of awe when the view of New York State surrounded us. We all said how the challenge seemed a lot less scary after conquering it. It reminded me of this part in Paolo Coelho’s book, The Pilgrimage, when Paolo must climb a waterfall, despite his injuries, despite his fatigue and weakness. He told his leader that he could not do it; he was about to accept failure, but after he finally accepted the challenge and made it to the top, he saw from the top of the waterfall that it was not as threatening as it seemed from the bottom.
We had made it a long way, but we were not at our destination yet. We had to walk up a few flights of stairs to make it to the top of the Tower. The extra push was well worth it. We were truly at the very top of Mohonk Mountain. This tower looked so far and so small from where we had parked our car. We enjoyed some sandwiches and chocolate bars for lunch, and as we ate, we could all feel raindrops begin to drizzle over us. What a perfect gift from the summit. We covered up and packed up our things as quickly as we could to try and beat the downpour of rain that seemed to be coming. We didn’t have to climb the boulders on the way down. In fact, that labyrinth trail was only marked with arrows for the ascent up, not coming back down. We took an easy, flat trail back down. The rain had never come. The drizzle at the top of the tower seemed like it was just for dramatic effect. We stopped by the Mohonk Mountain Resort to use the restrooms and to buy a map (better late than never). At some point, we stopped following the trail again, made it to paved ground, but admitted to ourselves that we were lost. No worries, we just followed one of the main roads in the direction we hoped was the right way to our car (it was), and it was at this point in the day that I completely felt myself surrender to the moment. It’s not that I was worried the whole day, but walking along the road with the mountain that we had just climbed to our left and open farms to our right was when I just stopped trying to figure out how everything managed to work themselves out. The air in New Paltz, as I had been saying the whole day, was fresh and clean, but on the walk to the car, it was especially sweet. The weather was not cold, not hot, not even warm — it was just perfect. My four friends and I had just shared the same adventure. No man left behind, no competition, no complaining. Part of me wanted to try and find something wrong with the moment. Motivational speaker, Brian Tracy, often says that guilt causes us to question our happiness and our success when things seem to be ‘too good to be true.’ That was just my human nature at work. Why resist though? The moment was perfect in every way.
The Sum of 20Something 