Some guys are into sports, some into computers, some live to golf. I’m afraid that I can, at best, name maybe a handful of major league teams, identify a computer two out of three times, and have never golfed. But I do have my recreation of choice, which is backpacking. I remember my first trip at 18, with a distant cousin, in the Colorado Rockies. We hiked 7 miles or so a day at 10,000 feet, with me moaning and griping all the way- under my breathe doing far worse. We were only out four nights, and I hated every minute or it. If there was a highlight, it was the gallons of hot chocolate we managed to work into every meal. I found that hiking made my body hurt. My feet ached from the new boots, and my hips screamed from the pounds of gear and tents and hot chocolate I had to carry. If that weren’t enough and I were to really fess up, my cousin was a girl, and she made me look like a sissy as she plodded on without complaint, carrying twice the weight I carried (later, being the last of the chivalrous male breed, I let her carry all the hot chocolate as I tried to lighten my pack).

How I got from that first miserable trip to having logged nearly a thousand miles in 20 different states is a minor miracle of transformation of heart. I found out that there was a good reason I hated backpacking from the start. It was because I thought it was supposed to be easy. As I went out the second and third time to haul a pack, I found that it never got any easier, but I began to change. You see, what I hated about backpacking was what I hated about life – that it never went the way I wanted it to. I always seemed to catch the red lights when I was in the most hurry. I always got put on hold when I was the most impatient, and traffic always seemed to be worst when I was in the foulest mood. It never seemed to dawn on me that my attitude might precede the badness of any difficulty.

I found that backpacking was hard because life is hard. There are so many things to hate about it; the heat, the cold, the rain, the beating sun, the long distances between camp sites and the days of misread maps that add even more miles to your day. I dislike the weight of the pack regardless of how hard I work to leave the luxuries home. There are days where the trail is up hill all day, and I’d swear that someone snuck several large rocks into my pack overnight. There are days where parts of my body hurt that I didn’t even know I had, and I wished would go away as soon as possible. And the worst part is that most of the painful things are things that I can’t do anything about; temperature, weight, distance. There seems to be so many unmovable pieces in life and I forget what is within my influence. Like the rest of life, I find my true nature comes out on the trail. It’s the place where my character gets tested, where the depth of my selfishness gets revealed, where the stuff I’m made of gets called into question.

Out of the miles spent on the trail – both in life and in backpacking - I have come to a realization about myself and about life that has redirected the paths on which I walk. The path has brought a new mantra that echoes through my head, calling me to new ways of being and doing life – new ways of hiking, on and off the trail. It’s not profound, but the truth in it feels somehow empowering and freeing; “Sometimes you can’t change how far you have to hike. Sometimes you can’t do anything about the trail’s steepness or the temperature of the day. Lot’s of times you can’t even control how much weight you carry in your pack. But you can always have a choice about who and how you want to be in the journey.” That one phrase remains my one movable piece, regardless how difficult the road might seem. We can always have a choice about us. When I pack, the miles seem beyond bearable when I notice all I can’t do anything about. When I exercise the choice I have to be a blessing to the other hikers on the trip with me, I find new meaning and purpose in the hike. When I finally take my eyes off of my own misery and begin to see myself as someone who could lighten another’s load, the journey takes on new direction. When I see that life doesn’t owe me anything, but I can impact life by the way I hike, I feel new energy for the steep slopes. I see that the world is bigger than my own load.

As a life coach, I often ask my clients the simple question “How would you like to be?” We really do have a choice about that. Some people just aren’t fun to hike with – they bring everybody down, they drag their feet in silent defiance, they not only don’t carry their own load, they hike with a subtle anger at others for not making their load lighter. And when you do lighten their load, they offer no appreciation for the act of grace. I simply believe that we have a choice about who we are when we hike. We can be as we choose to be in the journey of life.

So let me ask you a question. You can’t probably do much about what life has dealt you. The consequences you must bear because of what has happened in your life are often immovable. You might have an overwhelming load to carry when it comes to family or debt or consequences of past actions. There is probably a long list of pieces in your life that you can’t do much about. But there is one thing you can do something about; answer the question “how and who do you want to be in the journey?” Do you have the courage to pick up your load and hike bearing the image of God? Because to take responsibility to choose means to exercise the freewill God has trusted us with, and by doing so to glorify him. So decide how and who you want to be, then go out and be that way everyday, regardless of the weight of your pack.

The article Lightening the Load of Life was Submitted by Mike Ege through Articles.GetACoder.com network. Here's the additional information: © 2007 Mike Ege http://www.OutsideEdgeCoaching.com Mike Ege, life coaches who challenge people who are tired of shallow, ineffective faith to go beyond the brink of what they’ve always known and ignite a spiritual journey full of adventure, purpose, and freedom. For more information or to sign up for a free email series ‘7 Radical Freedoms’, go to hrf="http://www.OutsideEdgeCoaching.com"> http://www.OutsideEdgeCoaching.com