The Secret of the Mountain
Neil Gaiman once gave a speech to a bunch of graduating college seniors in which he referred to his career as a mountain. And what I really liked about the metaphor was that, though the mountain represented his goals, Gaiman’s encouragement came as he described his journey. The journey was his career. And by all indications (and I think Gaiman himself might agree with this), that journey is still happening. The mountain is still there, but he may never actually reach it.
At first blush, that sounds terrible, doesn't it? “Set your goal, but know that you may never reach it.” What, then, is the point of the goal? Why dream, why put yourself on the path to something, if you may not get there?
That’s the thing… there’s a problem in your thinking.
Dreams are easy. Everyone has one. It may or may not be grand and sparkling. Your dream may be to have a lovely family, a comfortable house, and a job that pays a good wage without demanding too much from your life. That’s an honorable dream.
Goals are harder. Goals are dreams with deadlines, they say. “I want to achieve X by Y Date.” That’s pretty solid. And once you know your goal, you can start sussing out exactly what it takes to get there. But when you get there… then what?
If your goal was “have $10 million in the bank by the time I’m 50,” and you don’t meet that goal, then are you a failure? If you do meet that goal, where do you go from there? All that work and effort and heart and energy you put into the goal got you exactly what you wanted but… now what?
That’s usually the point at which people feel depressed. They go into a mid-life crisis mode, or they start casting around for some other target for their lives, latching on to whatever they find, chasing the high of accomplishment yet again.
I think we’re all missing the point, though.
Because the secret of the mountain is this: We should never reach the mountain.
The journey is the point. The purpose is our destination. And it should be a land so expansive and so vast that we spend our lives navigating and exploring it.
A mountain at a distance is awe inspiring and majestic. But a mountain up close becomes mundane. It’s just dirt and rock now.
The inspiration comes from seeing it on the horizon. And the growth we have comes from navigating the path toward it. We will always be happier and better off, we will always be more, for the journey we take.
So if you’re finding yourself frustrated that you can see your mountain clearly but you just can’t get there, stop. Pause. Take a breath. And take in the view. Choose the next waypoint on your journey, and enjoy the walk. The mountain will always be there. But the path you take is where all the life is.
If you like this post, there’s a blog full of this kind of stuff. And Side Notes is basically an extension of my Note at the End, which you’ll find in all of my novels. And you can find those by clicking here. Share this post with your friends, if you found it helpful. And buy my books if you’d like to support me and my work!
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ISOLATED. MURDERED. GHOSTS IN THE MACHINE.
Book Five of the Quake Runner: Alex Kayne Thrillers
ALEX Kayne has spent years running from the law.
Now she’s running toward a killer.
When a young freelancer’s body is discovered hundreds of miles from home, the case looks like another tragedy destined to go cold. But Alex sees the pattern no one else can. Remote workers. Isolated lives. Digital identities that keep moving, keep speaking, keep earning—long after the real person is dead.
Someone is murdering the invisible and leaving echoes behind.
With QuIEK, her quantum-based AI, Kayne can slip through any system, unlock any secret, and vanish from nearly any trap. But this time, the enemy runs in the same virtual terrain. The killer lives in the shadows between real life and online existence, turning lonely people into puppets, trophies, and ghosts in the machine.
To stop them, Kayne must return to the life she thought she’d left behind: disguises, dead drops, stolen cars, false identities, and the constant pulse-pounding pressure of being hunted from every direction.
And somewhere in Seattle, the next victim is already being erased.
ECHO is a high-velocity techno-thriller about identity, obsession, justice, and the terrifying question of what remains of us when the world only knows our digital shadow. Fast, moody, razor-edged, and relentless, this is Alex Kayne at her most dangerous—and her most vulnerable.
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