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Tomorrow is not promised to you.
You plan and plan and plan, but plans are meaningless when the future is not guaranteed.
In the wake of Julia’s passing, these are my thoughts.
Of all the climbers I’d met in my travels, from across Asia to the United States, from Canada to Chile, I’d have never guessed that she would be one to die in a climbing accident--
We say ‘accident’, as if she had made a mistake.
But there had been no mistake.
She was soloing easy terrain. The rock broke from beneath her. She fell.
It was the only way she could have ever gone—Julia was so skilled at climbing, there was no other way the mountains could have ever taken her except to crumble away from below.
She was never someone who was “supposed” to die climbing.
Over the past few years since coming back to America, I’d been saving up for my Next Big Adventure.
But in light of this, I wonder—how can I save for this “next” adventure when I don’t know if tomorrow exists?
In her case, it was a death in the mountains, but there are so many other ways for tomorrow to be snatched away from you unexpectedly. Take, for example, the fact that in 2014, in the United States alone, an average of 90 people died every day due to car-related accidents. And that’s the number of people who died—what about people who were ‘just’ horrifically injured?
Tomorrow is not a promise.
All I have is today.
I’ve spent some time these past few weeks readjusting and reprioritizing my goals.
I’m finding ways to push forward the schedule for my Next Big Adventure.
I’m learning how to dream big again and how to have ambition.
I’m remembering how to be fearless and limitless.
I can’t wait for the future anymore.
All I have is today.
The world can be so hard. We’re so connected, and population density only increases as the decades pass. We see each other with our eyes more and more and are so close to each other physically, but somehow, we’re reduced to just parts of ourselves, still images and words on a screen.
In the dark of the night, we walk past each other quickly, eyes averted, gazes never met, dying in midair.
We deny we even exist.
I’m learning to love moments.
to share moments.
give moments.
I hope I can make just one more second of eye contact with another person. Help them feel just one tiny bit more validated. Give them just one sliver more of humanity.
All we have is today.