When is enough? And where?
We’d been trapped for 4 days.
On a tiny snow-covered ledge.
At nearly 21,000’.
Blowing, drifting snow.
Hurricane-force winds.
Temps well below zero.
We were out of food and fuel.
Morale was low.
Actually morale was gone.
At dawn on the 5th day, there was sun. A lot of wind still. But sun.
Most summit attempts start well before dawn. Because of the danger of late day storms.
But… I thought, maybe, just maybe, we could get to the summit and back. And maybe, just maybe, if the weather held, we could descend to basecamp the next day.
It took a long time to dig out our gear from the snow. And longer still to get geared up. It can take twenty minutes at that altitude just to lace up your boots.
Off we went at about 9 am. Four of us.
Completely beaten down and depleted after 4 storm-battered days and nights in a small nylon tent.
My three comrades soon called it quits.
I made an agreement with myself: My turnaround time would be 2:00 pm. Late in the high mountains. But doable I told myself.
I stepped out on the Gran Acarreo, a huge traverse across a thirty-degree snow slope dropping off thousands of feet to my right.
Unroped. Not a soul in sight.
Three thousand feet below, I could see storm clouds forming.
Two pm came and went.
Deluded by altitude, you tell stories to yourself.
I came to the base of the infamous Canaleta. A steep snow and rock-filled gully that climbs 800’ to the summit ridge.
The clouds filling in; and the snow beginning to blow.
I had the summit in the bag, I told myself.
Kicking steps in the snow, I worked my way up to the top of the Canaleta.
On that narrow ridge top, at 23,000’, I could see – well I could kind of see – how the sheer Great South Wall of Aconcagua dropped off 5000’ to my right.
Another 20 minutes and I was there.
I looked at my watch. It was 4 pm. Two hours after my turnaround time.
The visibility was less than 10 or 20 feet.
It was brutally cold. Snowing hard. Blowing hard. Oh. And there was thunder and lightning.
I was a long way from my tiny nylon tent; and a long, long way from home.
Standing on the summit of Aconcagua, the highest summit in the western hemisphere, one of the Seven Summits of the world is a coveted objective. A huge achievement by most standards.
But there I was. All by myself. In a raging storm. Alone. Lonely. Frightened. And sad.
Thousands of miles away, I had the corner office at the Big Firm, a nice house in the suburbs, a cool car, and a beautiful boat. But none of that seemed enough. None of that satisfied a deep longing. For something.
Achieving a big goal would make it all better, I’d told myself.
I was wrong.
Standing on that summit felt hollow and empty.
Unsatisfying.
I was searching for meaning and purpose.
But in the wrong places. In the wrong ways.
Two of the most fundamental and interrelated questions we grapple with as human beings are: Am I enough? And… Will I be loved?
The yearning, the searching for enoughness drives most of us for most of our lives.
Am I good enough? Successful enough? Pretty enough? Handsome enough?
Do I look as if I am enough?
Probably not, we conclude. Over and over and over again.
And so we spend our lives striving.
Yearning.
Seeking.
Climbing big mountains.
Getting the corner office.
And the nice car.
And the beautiful house with the carefully manicured lawn.
The search for enoughness fuels the ad industry, and the weight loss industry, and the fitness industry and the auto industry and the beauty industry, and the bridal industry, and the fashion industry and the landscape industry.
Because if we can’t feel enough, at least, maybe, we can look enough.
But enoughness is never outside yourself. It is within.
Always within.
And already there.
You are loved; and you are enough.
Just as you are.