Monday, January 22, 2018

Limitless human spirit


There were some moments in my trek, when I felt I was someone special to be at right place at right time.

We were slowly coming back from Everest Base Camp. It was very tiring. We ran out of breathe very often. But as soon as we reached the spot, it felt as if the body released some reserve energy. All of were happy, cheerful. Lot of high fives going around, everyone posing for photos. Thirty minutes we spent there was what we we walked for ten days. One important item on the bucket list was ticked. As we started coming back, all the additional efforts started weighing down on us and we started to walk even slower.

Out of blue, we heard a bell ringing softly. Many yaks, cows had crossed us but they didn't have bell around there necks. So this was something different. We saw a a trekker as ringing the bell as he walked. When we saw his fellow trekker we were surprised beyond words. The person following him was completely blind.

Human spirit has no limits.

Road we were walking on was trecherous. We had to be careful about every step. A wrong step could mean twisted ankle or fractured bone. But when we got that right, we were rewarded with great views. View of nice blue sky, contrasted with snow white mountains, green valleys, turquoise green coloured river curved thru the forest made us forget our tiredness. Physical efforts was our investment beautiful views was our reward.

I wonder how it worked for that blind man. I felt humbled. All my problems seemed miniscule. All my fears seemed absurd.

A motivated blind man merrily climbing up to the Everest Base Camp made me feel that I don't really have any right to complain about my life. It opened my eyes to possibilities I had never imagined before.

I love trekking because once in a while, in many unexpected ways, we experience things that might shake us out of our protected lives, set patterns and cosy limited realities, to show us the human spirit that we can never imagine.

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