Why worry?

All my life, I have worried about things in the distance, only to discover that when I actually get there, they are fine. As a child, I worried incessantly about the mysterious intricacies of marriage, education, professional identification, and all manner of adult pursuits. In college and grad schoool, I worried about exams, pre-lims, presentations, and all the various hurdles. And one by one, as each challenge rolled into the present, it was fine!

I know from long experience that when biking or hiking, the hill that looks impossible up there ahead of you will actually be manageable once you're on it. Directly underfoot, in my experience, nothing feels as bad as it looks in anticipation. So you'd think I would have learned not to worry, right?

But what if worry is the secret sauce that makes the whole system work?

And does this model hold up for the final unknown? Once we get to death, so fearsome out there in the future, is it actually just fine?

I was musing on all this yesterday, while hiking up to a pass. I kept looking for it. I knew there had to be a way through the bowl of sheer rock I was in, but I could not see it. Where was the darn opening?

I kept saying to myself "this is exactly what you've been talking about!" "Trust the path." So I stopped looking ahead, and just trudged along, one step after the other. The path got steeper and narrower, the rock less stable and looser, the drop offs higher and uglier, and it was honestly awful. When I finally topped out, clinging to the fixed lines that had eventually shown up. I was thinking this was a terrible example!

Thankfully, it was fine, but no fun at all! Clearly I had not worried enough!

Today was gorgeous, with no such drama.

And I am more than half way through! Tomorrow is threatening rain in the early afternoon, so I plan to head out early, hoping to get over the pass of the day before things get wet!