A few days back, I came across a line we had used some time back for a brand campaign, as part of some ambient advertising – “Let’s cut climbing stairs, but not climbing ladders”. That ended up prompting quite a surreal thought.
Of starting to climb a ladder from the time we’re kids. The first few rungs seem easy, there’s someone helping you, and you know that the same someone is there to catch you when you fall. There are others who are climbing ladders too, your friends, some of whom keep up with you while others choose a faster or slower pace. There are those who will leap, knowing all about high risks and huge rewards. There are those who know exactly how much of effort is required to reach where they want to be, and there are those who are unsure, but still know they’ve to climb.
At some point, when you have climbed quite a bit, you pause to look. You might realise that the support you had in the beginning is gone, and perhaps replaced with another one. You would look up, perhaps you now know where you have to go, and the steps and pace required to get there. Or you would look down, and see how far you’ve come up. Or you would look sideways, at friends, family, peers who have been climbing too, you might be tempted to compare and consider your efforts and results against what theirs.
And then perhaps you would just close your eyes, take a deep breath and look within – at what you have, and what you want to have. Maybe you’ll find yourself dissatisfied and might want to climb a bit more. Or you’ll decide that you quite like the place you’re at, and this is as good a final destination as there can be, you’ll choose to enjoy the view from where you are and perhaps help those who haven’t been able to climb as much as you have, or those who want to climb higher than you have. Maybe you would decide to climb a bit more and then decide.
The choice would be yours. After all, its your ladder, and your climb, and the top rung is where you decide it will be. The only thing you really don’t know is the journey time.
until next time, an alarm rung….