“Awareness is the most precious kind of freedom.” — Joshua Fields Millburn

 
So we’re at the top of a mountain somewhere near Cold Spring, N.Y., and we’re lost.

And sunburnt. And tired. And out of water.

And there’s this guy at the top, too. He’s hiked here 600 times, he says. Every year for the past 30 years, entire weekends up here.

He seems like a good guy to ask a simple question: How do we get home?

The only way back is the way you came, he says. He points out a long trail home. Could be hours that way.

Not happening.

We thank him. We’re mad. We’re tired.

And then this other group comes to the top from the other side.

There’s a path there?

There is, they say. An easier way down. A better way down.

We thank the heavens and head home.

So what about that other guy? The expert hiker? The one who’d been hiking here for years?

I don’t know. Maybe he’d forgotten the other way home. Maybe he’d just never hiked it.

Whatever the case: There’s almost always another way to get where you need to go. Sometimes figuratively. and sometimes quite literally, up in the hills north of NYC.