Sadhguru Quote on Priorities and How Discovering Your “Everest” Will Change Your Life

“You cannot be partying till early morning and attempt to scale Mount Everest tomorrow!”

Sadhguru, Inner Engineering (Page 223)

Beyond the Quote (298/365)

We all have an “Everest” in our lives. A challenge that surpasses all of the other challenges we could face and yet, excites us to our core. A challenge that we know is going to take every ounce of strength and vigor and focus that we have and yet, still entices us to step forward. A challenge that feels right. One which our whole lives have prepared us for and one that matches our drive to our potential; our talents to our interests; our aptitude to our attitude. The type of challenge that you would skip a full night of partying for because your mission is more important to you.

To be clear, your “Everest” is not the greatest challenge of your day or week or month or even year. It’s the greatest challenge of your lifetime. It’s the challenge that is going to require all of you, day-in and day-out, for an impressive extent of time. Your Everest might be your career and in how you climb your way to the top of the hierarchy. Your Everest might be your creative pursuits and in how you produce work that impacts the greatest number of people that you can. Your Everest might be conquering yourself and in how you elevate your mind, body, and spirit to their highest levels you can manage. Once you eye your Everest, you’ll never be the same.

The imagined raw beauty of standing at the peak of your mountain will captivate your imagination and drive you feverishly forward. The feeling of jitters and uncontrollable emotional excitement will fill you with a sense of life energy that you didn’t even know you had. What starts to manifest from deep inside of you, both in thought and in action, will start to feel both foreign and completely natural. You will start to feel as though you are committing to something much bigger than yourself. And suddenly, conquering your Everest becomes one of the top priorities in your life.

Partying until early morning no longer becomes an option simply because your mind will be so captivated by the presence of your Everest. In fact, the people who spend all night partying likely are the ones who haven’t found their Everest, yet. There is a gap in their lives and they can feel it. So, they fill that gap by distracting their minds and bodies so they don’t have to sit around and feel the pain and longing that the gap naturally creates. And so it goes with partying, media binging, content consuming, and “blue checkmark” worshiping. It’s a way to avoid confronting the gap. But, take heed—it’s easy to get lost in distractions day-to-day, week-to-week, month-to-month, and year-to-year.

You won’t find your Everest while you are distracted. And the longer you stay distracted, the less time you’ll have to actively find yours. Rest assured, if you haven’t found your Everest yet it’s not because it isn’t there. Of this I am sure. It’s either because you haven’t looked in the right places or because you haven’t committed to the search deep enough. Most people search for their Everest under the impression that they’ll, “know it when they see it”—but, this isn’t exactly true. Your Everest isn’t something you see so much as it’s something you feel. Better to adopt the mindset that you’ll know it when you feel it.

This is important to denote because now it takes just eyes out of the equation. When you look at mountains, how to know which is which? They all look the same. Have you ever climbed to the top of a mountain and peered out at another mountain range? It’s so hard to distinguish one mountain from the other. How to know which mountain is yours to climb? In order to find that out, you have to use all of your senses and experience the climb first hand. Just looking won’t be enough. Especially not from a screen. You have to immerse yourself in the experience and get, “down-and-dirty” with some climbs.

You see, you find your Everest by climbing—not just by searching. Some mountains you’ll scale quickly. Those are necessary to building up your mountaineering skills. Some mountains will overwhelm you and force you to turn back. These are also necessary so you can discover your limits. Then, you’ll come across a mountain that feels just right. One that isn’t too easy, but also isn’t extremely hard. And it’ll call upon the skills that you’ve built, the experiences you’ve had, and the potential that you were born with. You’ll know that it’s going to take every ounce of strength and vigor and focus that you have to conquer it and that thought will excite you to your core. And forward you’ll move, despite the challenges that are undoubtedly ahead, because that will be your Everest—and it will be your life’s greatest pleasure to climb.

In a Tweet:

We all have an "Everest" in our lives. A challenge that surpasses all others and yet, excites us to our core.

If you haven't found yours yet, consider doing less "searching" and try doing more "experimenting."

You find your mountain by climbing mountains—not by looking at them.

— Matthew Hogan (@MattHogan123) October 28, 2020

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