Deepening emotional connection in relationships
May 1, 2025
The world will always remember Pope Francis
May 1, 2025
By Daniel Francis
In the blink of an eye, we are in the fifth month of 2025. I don’t know about you, but it feels like time flew. We are almost at the halfway mark, and I could have sworn we were just in January.
Coming to this realisation has me in a very contemplative mood. As mid-year approaches, I typically want to take stock of where I am with my goals this year and how much I have achieved or failed to achieve.
My mind is a funny thing, and it tends to drift in all directions, but I believe God pulls it where He needs it to be in my periods of reflection. Instead of contemplating what I had achieved this year, God had me imagining climbing a mountain. He wants me to share the significance of this visual with you today.
Saddle up and let’s see how quickly you notice where this is all going. Walk with me as I take you on where my mind went or, as I said, where God was leading me. I imagined someone preparing to climb a very tall mountain. They pack their gear, their rations, and they plan to scale the mountain.
Their journey begins and they are in good spirits. They climb and climb and climb. They take breaks along the way and camp each night to shield themself from the elements. Each day, they climb higher and higher, always looking upwards, always focused on the peak: their destination.
As they climb, the air gets thinner so it’s more difficult to breathe. Their muscles are starved for oxygen which causes them to tire out more quickly. The temperature steadily drops.
As it gets colder, the climber puts on more layers of clothes to defend against the harsh environment. The climber notices that his progress decreases as each new day passes. He can tell that he is moving ever more slowly to the destination: the peak. However, he stays focused on his task and takes it day after day, always looking forward.
One day, in particular, the climber feels fully defeated. He did not sleep well, and the weather was extra terrible that day. His progress was worse that day than any prior. He felt like a failure.
On waking up the next day, the climber had thoughts of going back down the mountain after such a terrible day prior. While mulling over whether this was what he wanted to do, he looked down the mountain and realised something that he had not considered this entire excursion. He saw how high he had climbed.
He noticed how the terrain changed so drastically from the lower section of the mountain, where it was easier, to the more unpredictable and harsh weather near the top where he was.
He thought about how some of the difficulties he experienced early on closer to the base of the mountain, would be trivial to him now after all the hardships he had experienced at this difficult stage of the journey.
He then took a moment to recognise how far he’d come and prepared to keep working his way up the mountain.
We have this tendency to focus on how far we have left to go as opposed to how far we’ve come. How many people reading this article have the things, the relationship, the opportunities that they prayed for a year ago? How many can see how far they’ve come from the person they were last year or a few years ago? Think about what challenges impeded your progress in the past. If you were faced with those same challenges today, would they be as difficult? No, they would not. As humans, our nature is to want better for ourselves.
In our pursuit of better, we sometimes get clouded by the fact that along the way, we have attained so much, grown so much, and have a lot to be grateful for. God has sent me to remind you to look down the mountain. See how far you’ve come. Remember all you have overcome to get here and how what you have now you would have prayed for desperately in the past. Take a moment to acknowledge your growth and thank God for helping bring you to this point.
Once you do, continue to make the necessary preparations, and get back on the path to your destination, your peak.
Daniel Francis is a millennial helping othermillennials. He is a two-time author of the books The Millennial Mind and The Millennial Experience, and an entrepreneur. Over the past four years, he has served as a Personal Development Coach whose work targets Millennials and helps them tap into their full potential. He is also a self-publishing coach and has guided hundreds on self-publishing their book successfully.
LinkedIn: Daniel Francis
IG: o.m.publishing
Website: www.ompublishing.org
