Be prepared

I read a fascinating article last night titled, “The Killing Peak,” by Matthew Power, in Men’s Journal.

The intro begins,

“K2, the world’s second-highest summit, is the true climber’s mountain, more challenging and dangerous than Everest—as the world learned this August, when 11 climbers perished within a span of 30 hours. The inside story of what went wrong...”

I’ve always been intrigued by what drives terrain adventurers to extremes that endanger life and limb in order to reach a mountain top or deep into the Antarctica, or to whatever earthly challenge calls them. I certainly understand the desire to discover new places and do what has not been done before. I like to do the same in my work as a metaphysician. But I've also found it helpful to study why some explorers are consistently successful, and others perish in short order. What lessons can I learn from their experiences, I ask, that can be applied to my own metaphysical adventuring?

There are many lessons to learn in this article, for it spells out many of the mistakes and miscalculations the climbers made last August on K2. Errors that could have been avoided if sound reasoning had prevailed.

One of the most interesting facts to me was that carefully laid out plans had been prepared ahead of time, but several members of the party of 20 that ascended the slope August 1, didn’t follow through with their obligations. One group didn’t bring enough rope. Another group brought rope, but it was poor quality. They went up anyway. Through The Bottleneck, plans had been made to ensure the rope would get them to the top, but the plans weren’t followed. They ran out of rope when they needed it most.

One man, a world class climber, had set out very early in the morning, and made it to summit by 2:30 and headed back. On the way down, he passed the others, who were way behind schedule, and told them to turn around and go back. They would never make it up and back in time, he warned. The others ignored him and went anyway, only to perish because of their blind human will. There were trained Sherpas in the group who perished striving to save the inexperienced climbers who lost footings, got tangled in ropes and caught in avalanches. It is a sad story on one hand, but very instructive on the other.

As I read the account, I remembered Jesus wise instruction,

For which of you, intending to build a tower, sitteth not down first, and counteth the cost, whether he have sufficient to finish it?...Or what king, going to make war against another king, sitteth not down first, and consulteth whether he be able with ten thousand to meet him that cometh against him with twenty thousand? Luke

I read in these words counsel to prepare ahead of time. One must not be naïve about the odds stacked against him when going out to battle an enemy or build a tower for a purpose.

I think about the economic and housing fears sweeping the globe today. Could the same lesson be learned there? I ask. Did there need to be better planning to prevent “towers” from falling that we see littering the economic landscape today? … the “towers” of the mortgage and banking industry, highly leveraged houses and commercial properties, and who knows what may fall next week…

The wisdom and foresight of Jesus is incredibly deep. He had words for every kind of crisis humanity will ever face. And simple words, at that. There is nothing complicated about living and planning in an intelligent way that brings about good results.

I agree, it’s hard at times. We all have our opportunities to grow and improve! But the wisdom is in place and available to learn and benefit from that gets us through the tough times and preserves enough space and room to gather our resources back together again, and begin plan B if plan A didn’t work out.

Many of the climbers would likely have been saved if they would have admitted that they weren’t prepared, were willing to go back to camp, regroup, and try again later. But their fear of being cast as failures, or not having another chance, blinded their reason and caused them to keep on going.

Hindsight is so good! And it’s easy to say “Should have, could have…” after the fact. But again, we can learn from other’s experiences and prevent the same errors from being repeated.

Before embarking on a grand adventure, whether it’s a terrestrial, financial, relationship or career type of activity, we can count the cost ahead of time, and be sure we have the resources, understanding and ability we need to get to summit as planned. And if not, we stay put, remain patient, and keep growing in understanding and ability until we are ready and able to succeed. Then it’s time to climb!