Dreaded Hill

Today I hiked to the top of Dreaded Hill.  It's a really tough hike as you can imagine by the name…

When I got to the top, I was inundated by a bunch of bad news texts.  Nothing earth shattering, but just disheartening.

I sat back and looked at the beautiful view.  It was such a strong contradiction to the ugly news on the screen of my phone.

As I walked down the hill, my eyes were fixed on the ground.   One wrong step can be a pretty rough injury on the way back down.

Suddenly, one footprint grabbed my attention.  It was dramatically smaller than the rest.  It must have been a little boy or little girl tagging along with their dad on his hike.  I realized, that little one had more courage than everyone else.  It takes a strong person to be that little and take on a hill that big.

And it became a perfect analogy for my life at that moment.  In the face of bad news, in the face of changes around the corner, I would be okay I could be as strong and as courageous as this little one.  (And to remember where my strength comes from…)

I pulled out my phone inspired by whoever wore this shoe.  I decided to take a picture of the footprint and put it over my desk reminding myself that I can conquer things that are too hard, too big.

If I could only find the person wearing that shoe and find out their secret.

As I stepped back from taking the picture, I saw something I never expected.

It was my footprint.

Keep going.

My friend, Matt, and I were hiking up in the Hollywood Hills the other day and decided to take a trip to the Hollywood Sign.  It used to be illegal to hike to the Hollywood sign, but I heard a rumor that it's now allowed.  Thus, we headed up that way.  (I figured we could just turn back if we saw no trespassing signs).

Now, I didn't see any signs, but people obviously don't do this very often as Matt and I seemed to (at times) be making our own path.  There were quite a few times when I thought "I'm pretty sure if I lost my footing I would slide right down the side of this hill."

When Matt and I finally got to the end of our hike, we sat back and took in the most amazing view of Los Angeles I had ever seen… and I'm not exaggerating.  To our right, the ocean went on as far as the eye could see, the valley spread out in front of us and downtown stood strong to our left.

Absolutely gorgeous.

And there we were, exhausted, sweaty, covered head to toe in dirt and absolutely intoxicated by the view.

There were plenty of times when we thought about stopping, wondering if it was safe, wondering if we should turn back, but it wasn't until we took in that view that I realized one amazing thing.  You only get to the truly great places when you keep going at the point where everyone else stops.  Keep going.