The mountains of you are not built
on dust –
Firefly magic and golden dawn mist
But a persistent consistency
No overlooked leak –
a continual pouring out
Rise when your muscles ache not to
Heart when your head says too much
Sun when the dusk longs to fall
The mountains of you do not grow taller
by being seen –
Shiny highlights of outside perspective
Window into one percent reality
No overnight bloom –
an hourly stretch of each limb
The slow waking hours
you steal from the night
learning to sit up a little higher
The mountains of you –
They’re the cement between bricks
Water in the soil
Long way home
Finicky, fussy
Patience promise and delicacy
The mountains of you –
They’ll reach as many heights as you want them to
And dear,
Don’t you dream of how the horizon would glow
looking back over all the desert you crossed?
It’s the tedious work. The roll yourself out of bed an hour early to chip away at writing the book. The moments given to center yourself before the chaos of the morning. The daily ten dollars not spent, but saved. The last lap around the block after the run is already over. The weekly shared coffee that turns friend to family. The Saturday evening occasionally sacrificed in the name of your dream. They are the anything but easy; often unglamorous. But, after determinedly fixing your eyes on the end of the tunnel for so long, the day you see the view out the other side is so dang sweet.
We often see investing as the “in the middle” work we don’t want to do, in order to get to the end result we do want to have. At first glance, it’s much more appealing to float in the pool than swim against the current. To eat the dessert rather than the dinner. But it’s a funny thing – I’ve found that somewhere along the way, you stop craving the habit that seems enticing but doesn’t actually push you further.
The effort that felt like such work, becomes rhythm, and one that in turn actually makes you feel wonderful.
I want to add a twice-underlined disclaimer to this month’s focus. By no means are we here to say work the 80-hour week, sleep four hours a night, or be harsh with yourself in order to achieve your goals. This is not what we believe in, in the least. Investment is work, yes, but it can be beautiful.
Investing is not overrun your life work. It’s not sacrifice your health, relationships, or passions work. In fact, it’s the opposite. It’s a reprioritizing. A shifting. A block by block, thoughtful look at how to balance your life between everything you need with everything you want, and adding in – where you can – the rituals that will make your life more fruitful, day by day – not overnight. With finances specifically, we are often so surprised at what is possible by taking the slow and steady approach towards a goal – whether it be as practical as paying off a loan, or as lush as saving for a trip to Bali. To get there can solely be a matter of laying the borders before us, and not leaving the path we’re headed down as up in the air.
So, what has been living in the back of your mind that you want to begin moving towards?
This month, we say it’s time to lay down the excuses (you’ll be able to find them anytime you look) and start investing in what you need to create the life you want to live. Maybe for you it’s taking that drawing class, or getting a business coach, or doing therapy. It could be setting a weekly call to foster a relationship you’ve let plateau. Or maybe even putting in the gradual steps to taking care of your body. See yourself as an investment. See others as an investment. Remember, we’re worth our time. We’re worth our resources. We’re worth putting in the beautiful, bit-by-bit, work.
Photos by Nicol Biesek for Yellow Co.