February 20, 2011
It has been snowing for two days, and this morning, the snow turns to freezing rain. What is the better way to spend a day indoor with a good book, “Eiger Dreams” by Jon Krakauer.
It was nearly fifteen years ago that I first read Jon Krakauer another infamous book “Into Thin Air”. His personal account of Everest disaster enthralled me and after I finished reading the story, I decided that I had to see this legendary mountain that claimed so many climbers’ life. I even thought about climbing it.
After enduring 28 days with subzero temperature, I finally reached Everest base camp, barely weighted 95 lbs, with greasy hair, charcoal face, smelly cloths and dirty fingers. That morning, looking up to the Western Cwm which led to the Lhotse face of Mt. Everest, I shivered in the bitter cold mountain air, realized that there were limits of my dreams. The dream of climbing Mt. Everest for me, not only was impossible, it was in deed suicidal. I gave up that dream and swore that I would never ever set foot on that hostile, barren and cruel land again. Seven years later, Jon Krakauer’s “Eiger Dreams” makes me relive those horrible moments.
It is easy, when you are young, to think that what you desire is what you deserve, to believe that if you want something badly enough, work hard towards it and at the end, you are entitled to have it. Everest experience had nudged me a little further away from that obdurate naive assumption. It taught me that not all dreams are attainable. There are limits for what we can and can not do in life. After Mt. Everest, I moved on to other dreams, dreams that may not be as grandeur as the dream of climbing Everest, but they were meaningful events that fulfilled my happiness, defined and enriched my life.
It is not the end of the world if we cannot achieve some of our dreams, but stop pursuing dreams, however, IS.
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