Letter To Self #1: When Accomplishments Become Burdens

To climb the top of a mountain, reach a peak for which you had made enormous sacrifices. One would imagine that this is happily ever after yet life being what it is always imposes a much more sobering reality. In the end, accomplishments can become burdens and previous joys sources of sadness. Think of fame or the job you spent months trying to find but now despise. How is it that achieving a goal can bring forth a sense of emptiness. How does honey go bitter?

It did not come so easily so as to render it cheap and unworthy of appreciation. Remember the all-nighters in university that got you the degree you now look at with contempt? What about the hundreds of applications that got you the job that you now find unfulfilling and that has you feeling trapped? And the thousands of words carefully crafted in the vain hope that someone would find that you had something special to say or give?

Perhaps the view from these peaks was underwhelming. Maybe there was nothing but valley for miles on end that you would have to traverse, and no El Dorado on the other side. Or perhaps it simply is an unwritten rule in life that after the exhilaration of the achievement there must also be the sad realization that there is nowhere to go but down. From the top of the mountain there is no option but to descend. There is nothing more to achieve; just the unceremonious denouement of it all remains.

So what to do about it all? What else is left but to find new mountains to climb? Perhaps there are higher peaks that will lead to higher highs somewhere. That is the only hope. There is no remedy. The glow of every achievement will fade and you'll even grow to hate yourself for the time you've spent at the top of that mountain. The only solution is to descend and seek a new peak. All else is folly.