These days there are moments where I do not feel motivated. The hardest part of the day is going out the door and putting in the mileage for training. I realize that I’m quite lucky to have access to nature and the ability to enjoy it currently. However the motivation is tough. Over a month ago now the world as we know it shut down. It’s difficult to maintain positivity and what keeps me going now is what I’ve shunned for more than a decade, a daily routine in a singular location and dreaming about the mountains.
A life of continual pursuits in the mountains prepares the mind just so, to prepare and be thinking ahead. With the uncertainty with the remainder of 2020, I’m training for an alpinism + ski project this coming summer in the Karakoram that may not even happen. However, we must maintain hope and prepare for what may or may not happen. What else can we do? If I don’t prepare, if I don’t train my body and mind and the chance comes, how could I look back on this time period as being pursued wisely?
I thought and think this way a lot, how will my actions today influence myself, humanity and my family in the future. And even more importantly, how will I look back on it? Did I do my best? Did I fall into the old habits of comfort, familiarity and procrastination? Or did I forge ahead. Past and present tense. Dreaming about the mountains has become my reality again, it has been more than a decade since I’ve hung on the photo of a mountain face and its possibilities.
I haven’t finished a book in months, I can’t read now. Constantly pulled to this direction and that. My mind wanders to the Karakoram and then ski shapes and then daily chores. The plants are growing in the yard outside the small room I’ve rented here in Pokhara, Nepal. The government may extend the lockdown for another month, I will know more soon. I want to go into the mountains as much as anyone, but now I am waiting. Waiting for what may be waiting in vain, for something that I’m planning that I may not achieve. There are more important matters at hand than my own professional goals today, but life does not come to us, we must create.
-Luke Smithwick | Pokhara, Nepal | 1400m | 1148 |
