A slippery slope is just a slippery slope

Our ego is a sneaky little piece of work. Always trying to protect us and keep us from harm or hunger. Just like our reptilian brain, it moves us away from pain and towards pleasure, towards survival and comfort.

Out hiking last weekend, the route had been changed to allow for improvements, hence on our way to the summit there were temporary paths and some had become muddy, slippery slopes.

As Nico put it “... some sections difficult to surpass. It can get tough and you might even slip and fall. But you look around and see others doing exactly the same, sometimes with ease and a smile. Then you realise you’re not alone on this path”.

It is, after all, just a path. The emotion and experience we attach to it is our choice. Whether we turn back or continue is our choice—often at the mercy of our ego, and influenced maybe by past experiences.

Our newbie to the hike, Vanessa, put it like this “What I loved about this was pushing myself physically even if it was hard. You know you’ll make it and it’ll feel good in the end. That can also happen mentally ... you’re not alone and our experiences might not be exactly the same but we’re all finding our way”.

We all make decisions every day—some about which path to take. How we interpret what happens along that path is up to us. And in every experience along that path is a lesson. What we do with that lesson is also up to us.

As Blair Singer and T.Harv Eker say “it’s not a question of will you learn something but what will you learn”. 

Photo by David Marcu on Unsplash