“People ask me, ‘What is the use of climbing Mount Everest?’ and my answer must at once be, ‘It is of no use.’ There is not the slightest prospect of any gain whatsoever. Oh, we may learn a little about the behavior of the human body at high altitudes, and possibly medical men may turn our observation to some account for the purposes of aviation. But otherwise nothing will come of it. We shall not bring back a single bit of gold or silver, not a gem, nor any coal or iron… If you cannot understand that there is something in man which responds to the challenge of this mountain and goes out to meet it, that the struggle is the struggle of life itself upward and forever upward, then you won’t see why we go. What we get from this adventure is just sheer joy. And joy is, after all, the end of life. We do not live to eat and make money. We eat and make money to be able to live. That is what life means and what life is for.” — George Mallory, Climbing Everest: The Complete Writings of George Mallory

For all the valleys in a lifetime, there are plenty of peaks as well. If we build in enough positive, healthy and productive habits, and surround ourself with enough supportive, engaged and proactive people we may establish a steady climb in our life. How high we climb is mostly a matter of persistence and proximity. Those who climb higher are uniquely focused on it, and almost always have placed themselves amongst a supporting cast who enables such audacity as climbing higher than they themselves might climb.

We all start from different places—some blessed with a pretty high base camp from which to climb higher, while some start in a desert of despair and low agency, a place where those high mountain peaks seem so distant. Often, you’ve got to walk for many miles away from the desert before you can begin a climb at all. Life isn’t fair in this way, but starting points are only a beginning. It’s always about the climb.

The aim of that climb ought to be joy. What is the purpose of any endeavor but joy? We climb a corporate ladder to collect enough coins to pay for joy. We fight wars or vote to ensure someone else isn’t taking our joy from us or our future generations. Clearly, joy is an essential measure of a beautiful life. The question is, is the climb to reach it bringing us closer to sheer joy or drawing us away from a beautiful life? Can they be one and the same?

We should know when to stop climbing and simply enjoy who we are, with what we have. We should be aware of the path we’ve taken on the climb and seek another if we start trading a beautiful life for the possibility of joy. But can we have our cake and eat it too? Shouldn’t we feel compelled to try? Perhaps the answer isn’t to stop climbing, but to start looking around at the scenery a bit more, lest we climb past the true beauty in our life for a peak that may be socked in clouds.