Moving Mountains

Last year, I read a terrific book entitled Throw Out Fifty Things, by Gail Blanke. I kept track of what I tossed and created a newsletter out of it for an organization business I wanted to get off the ground. As Peter Walsh says, organization is not something you do that is then done, it is a process, something ongoing in our lives. Besides Peter Walsh's books on organization, this Throw Out Fifty Things book is just as effective, as the author gets to the root of clutter rather than suggesting we spend weekends buying plastic bins in which to store things. As I look at my goals for this year and see there are "things" in my way that keep me from accomplishing them, I think back on Gail Blanke's book and believe another go-round will help me clear what stands in my way.

What's this got to do with mountains you ask? Well, I don't have "mountains" of stuff or even much clutter. I've been a fan (Chris would say I'm a convert) of Peter Walsh for several years now and after my first time through Throw Out Fifty Things I paired down significantly. It's not "stuff" that looms like a mountain in my house. What this has to do with mountains is my metaphorical way of getting to my point. I'm a storyteller at heart, so bear with me. Grab a cup of tea or cocoa and settle in for a spell.

As if you couldn't tell already from various posts, I am a voracious reader. That said, I want to tell you about Tracy Kidder's book, Mountains Beyond Mountains, which is about Dr. Paul Farmer and his work in Haiti (long before any earthquake "moved" people to turn their eyes south of the U.S. to peer at the conditions there). The title of the book refers to a saying in Haiti, a very mountainous place, that there are literally mountains beyond mountains and this forever climbing is the life of a Haitian. Dr. Farmer went to Haiti during medical school to assist in their hospital. He found conditions deplorable. It was not that conditions in the hospital were so bad, but rather the fact that the road to the hospital itself could hardly be called a road. In order to improve healthcare, supplies and patients needed to be able to get to the hospital! On one trip, Farmer describes watching people die by the roadside as they cannot traverse the distance in such conditions. To picture it, conjure in your mind a road AFTER an earthquake. This is what that road to the hospital looked like a couple of decades before the earthquake that just happened!

Thus, in order to help anyone at the hospital, the road needed reparation so that it might function to efficiently bring supplies, physicians and patients to the same place. Since most healthcare and medical non-profit organizations won't fund infrastructure projects such as roads, Dr. Farmer created Partners in Health, an organization that looks at underlying and extended issues that hinder healthcare and addresses those as equally as providing actual physicians and medicines or supplies to people in need. If you ever wanted to give to an organization (started in Boston, no less!) that uses very little to fund its operations and administration, yet provides significant international aid on big issues, this is one that could use your check.

I digress. However, you're used to that by now if you've been reading this blog.

Oh, I see your tea or cocoa is just about finished and what lies in the bottom of your cup has grown cold. Back to the mountains! When I consider my goals this year and examine what has and hasn't happened in the past three weeks of this month, I think about two things this morning. I think about going through the Fifty Things book again to see what mountains lie in my way, what roads need reparation so that I may smoothly make my way to my destination, my goal. Sometimes, it's the road to a place that needs clearing before we can make our way toward our goals, dreams or whatever other place we're trying to reach.

I picture the road to the hospital in Haiti and use that as a metaphor for my 2011 goals. I see the misshapen ground, unpaved, full of potholes that are more like sink holes, debris lying across in places. Of course, aesthetically, I keep in mind the symbolism of Robert Frost's "road less travelled." So, while I might not pave this road into a superhighway because I like the quiet and slower pace an unpaved yet smooth-packed dirt road provides, I need to make sure there's nothing hindering my way. I need to throw out some things that get in the way of the life I want to live.

As you consider the places you want to be in life, what mountains must you climb? What paths or roads to that place need to be evened out before you may pass along them without jostling your very bones so that you are left bumping along to your goal? To mix metaphors further, what needs to be clear so that you have smooth sailing on your road? When you take hurdles out of the way, you really can move mountains!

In upcoming posts, I will share what I throw out and hope that if you check out Gail Blanke's book, or one of Peter Walsh's, that you share with me what you toss out of the way as you move toward the life you want to live!