Suppose you love mountain climbing and one day you set out to summit a peak you’ve been admiring for years. But when you get close to the mountain’s base you discover it’s completely surrounded by a swamp. This is a big surprise. No one told you about it. Now you’ll have to trudge through this icky mess before you can even start your climb.
You don’t like this situation, but you decide to suck it up and wade through the swamp because getting to the top of this mountain really matters to you.
All of us have things that are important to us: families, careers, causes. However, we inevitably have times when we face negative emotions related to these things: fear for our loved ones, uncertainties about our careers, and anger towards those who don’t support our causes.
But if these things really matter to us we persevere. We understand that sometimes we have to wade through the swamp of negative emotions to get to the mountain top.
Don’t let unpleasant emotions stop you. They’re part and parcel of living a full life.
