I was 21, living in Boston, and thinking things all the way through wasn’t really my thing.
A few of us decided to get out of the city and go for a hike. Not a walk-through-a-wooded-area-on-a-path kind of a hike. A real hike. Like a let’s-drive-across-the-state-and-go-up-a-mountain kind of a hike.
We drove. We parked. We checked in with the staff. We checked the weather. We were manly. We were macho. We were psyched. Let’s do this thing.
The hike up was great. I can’t recall what we talked about, but I do remember laughing a lot. We were close to the top and it was straight up COLD now. We were laughing less, but feeling good. Weather reports said it wouldn’t start storming until later.
Yeah, so the weather reports were wrong. It started storming hard. Really hard. In case you don’t know, northeastern snowstorms notoriously don’t give a shit if you have plans or are on top of a stupid, goddamn mountain. They’ll come out of nowhere and kick you in the shins because here’s the thing: northeastern snowstorms are assholes.
This is about the time we started getting worried. We still needed to get down this thing. So down we went on what we thought was the exact way we came up. “It was like this way-ish, I think. Eh. Close enough.”
It was snowing hard now and were practically running down this mountain. The staff said that we needed to be back by 5:00pm or they’d send a search party for us. Search parties are for losers, right? Pffft. We were on the ground right at 5:00pm…
…on the entirely opposite side of the mountain.
You know, sometimes it takes a while for lessons to hit. Days or months or even years. Not this one. This one hit – and sunk in – immediately:
Even the smallest, seemingly insignificant deviations need attention
or else they’ll become large problems later on.
Yes, we made it back. Yes, there was a search party looking for us. Yes, they were called back. And oh hell yes, they were super pissed at us. We apologized. We thanked them. We apologized again. And then we got the hell out of there.
Whether you’re working on a relationship, learning a new skill, or working to build a business, each decision – big or small – will require attention to make sure you end up where you want to be.
Not everything in life comes with a search party if you get lost.
Stay safe.
#bewhatyoumake
