The Easiest Way to Reach Your Peak

If you’re reading this, you have at least the desire to move up in your life.

Congratulations, you are an alive being on Planet Earth.

While somewhat facetious, it’s a sad state of affairs we live in today, that the peak on top of the mountain remains a dream for most people, even if they can ever consider it as a possibility in their own lives. Most of the time, we imagine a better future life, and spend our days and life energy today fighting ourselves and each other about “why” we can’t get to or don’t deserve what we set out for.

In a way, it’s set up to be that way.

If there were not millions upon millions watching in awe of the one/those on top of a mountain, many would not dare to climb in the first place.

The question is whether you’ve got the equally important desire to close the distance between where you are now and that seemingly shiny outcome.

The other part of the reason you’re reading this is because you’re tired of hearing that you’ve got to “work hard” to “achieve” something “successful.” Given those two parts of you, and the fact that they seem to be at odds, you’re looking for something else, naturally.

“No pain, no gain”

…has the immensely tense connotation that perfectly illustrates the American predicament. We constantly seek personal gain and satisfaction but are seeking it through the lens of ever-enhanced comfort of our surroundings, or in other words to avoid the experience of intensity in the form of fear or pain. It’s exemplified in this desire to ascend toward a peak of fame, fortune, security, love, and pleasures at which point one can finally rest, sit, enjoy the view, and retire into the sunset while seeking the destruction of ourselves (death).

Furthermore, we can differentiate between pain and soreness.

“Growing pains” commonly refers to the strain felt in the bones during childhood development. While the sensations of such skeletal/muscular growth or even becoming acquainted with a new person, job, environment can be so intense as to be mistaken with pain, there is a true difference between how we might interpret signals of pain vs. the inherent discomfort when you grow into a new possibility. Pain is supposed to be intensely felt because it is a neurochemical message applicable in the instant to enhance attention upon a particular part of the body or its environment. Ignoring pain of ANY sort will invite multiplied consequences of sensation the next time a similar situation arises, because you’re then giving feedback to your body that your attention was not keen enough to sense the subtler message, and that therefore more obvious a signal is required next time. The solution to this is to become more sensitive to pain, actually, and of shifting the interpretation around it.

The enhanced presence/attention as part of every activity will allow the recruitment of necessary faculty to perform as well as possible. When the present ability to perform is inadequate for the task at hand, the brain and body grow in either size or number of helpers (nerves, muscle fibers, connections, etc.) to prepare for the following instance of such demands. This invites new sensations altogether which is experienced as soreness! Becoming acquainted with an essentially new body, invites new attentive capacity to be able to know how to use the new faculty well.

Because of the bizarre notion of pain being a bad thing, in the pursuit of a peak of success, we almost don’t want to be present during the journey. We’ve assumed that precondition that it’s going to involve a lot of pain which we think is very very bad, and that at some point we’ll get to something very very good where pain is nonexistent. But again, more presence will allow you to achieve new heights of ability without breaking your body altogether, which is what happens in the process of what is thought to be “inevitable” for aging individuals. To grow into newness (soreness) with embrace rather than absence and disdain is how to experience at a heightened level. And to make sure that your new heights/peaks don’t fall apart when you get there.

The supposition that drives many of us forward is that the now moment is unsatisfactory. In a way, this is true, alluding to opening recognition of ever-expanding desire for human beings. In terms of our possessions, action, creativity, sensory pleasures (including eating, sex), there is thankfully no end to it.

If there were an ability to put it to rest for good, the universe would cease to be. We must constantly reproduce our own bodies through the delicious dance of food with our taste and digestive systems, and new bodies and lives through sexual intercourse.

Each situation is an opportunity to add something more on that is more complex, more beautiful, more intricately designed. But if this is to go on eternally, this moment must be simultaneously blissful beyond belief.

The implicit and horrid error in the above supposition is the association of the if clause of horrid pain being required to generate the condition or state of bliss or nirvana at some fictitious end that isn’t happening now.

Therefore, while we desire to create and to ascend and to add to the basic reality we observe and experience as recipients, to contribute in a sustainably fulfilling way is to do the process of life in the most joyous and ecstatic way possible.

And that happens now.

It’s fun to sometimes hold a goal out and even procrastinate to finally create and act fervently and anxiously to reach it in a hurry. But as soon as you grow tired and weary, you search for deeper meaning and something to carry you rather than you carrying the burden of life on your shoulders.

Decide Your Base Before Your Peak

The cutting down of apparently lofty aspirations as quickly as possible is necessary, particularly today. For one, if you don’t do it yourself then life will do it on your behalf at some point. I say particularly today, because the achievement of once life-long visions are achievable so easily. In fact, I just did a quick Google search about self-publishing and in the time of writing this article I received 3 phone calls AND 3 emails of people offering the services I’d requested WHILE I HAVE BEEN WRITING THIS ARTICLE, let alone my book. Once upon a time, the dream and vision of writing a book was daunting, arduous, costly, and plain old long. It was a whole world by itself. For me, it’s one of several projects I’m involving myself with at the present scope of my life. Because ways of doing it faster and faster are emerging at an accelerating rate.

What you want, you can have. And a lot of times, already do have. Plain and simple. Well, shoot.

News flash: what you thought you wanted isn’t really what you wanted.

In order to want something, there is an implication of lack so that there is an object(ive) to move toward. If you already have something that someone else could easily want, the first thing you must do before moving toward something else is to appreciate what you already have. Not because someone else could want it/does not have it, but because your anxiety over perpetual conquest can be quelled for yet another moment.

If it is all about conquest anyways, you can have everything and still have nothing, because you’ll be yet still on the lookout for more.

My intention here is to bring you close to reality, so you can see for yourself what it is you really want.

So if you were to have everything…what is next?

If you think you want the end result of something, the process is simply incidental, a nuisance, painful to getting it, the pleasurable goodie. So, you want it done as quickly as possible. That has been the theme of our discussion so far. Project this out over a whole lifetime, what one really wants is to die! But, our culture, technology, medicine, and religions of the past several hundred/thousand years has told us otherwise. No, we want to live forever, and will do “whatever it takes” to make it happen, including take on a miserable life. Have you ever stopped to consider this?! That the very assumption that the process of life is largely insufferable aside from pockets of pleasure and joy is at odds with the morals of eternal or prolonged life, and is furthermore caused by the pursuit everlastingly accelerated gratification of pleasure.

We are committing incremental suicide by juicing ourselves up with pleasure to feel something for a moment because we are in constant turmoil and tension about getting something or other. The tension is ridiculous, though. The tension is fueling itself. The entire process of seeking joyous life is synonymous with resisting joyous life.

Now that you are thoroughly dejected and disillusioned with the aspirations you once held so highly, let us enter into the “how” of reaching your peak(s) easily, if the answer is not yet so apparent.

Choose a Goal You Can Never Reach

At this point you may just want to click out of this. I encourage you to follow your instincts. Peaking is not for everybody.

The reason people want success is in some way because of the chemical reward of having completed something. To be able to say, “I’m done” releases a host of signals to the body and brain of relaxation and euphoria.

It is therefore alluring to continue setting goals to have that perpetual feeling of success and progress through increments of highs to keep you going.

Or so it is thought to be.

It’s again back to the same thinking of postponing and delaying the goodie to create the illusion that the game is worth the candle. The intention of creating goals can therefore seem to be to get to that satisfaction. If you set your intention so far that it will take 100 lifetimes to get there, but are equipped to attempt to reach it in this one, your intelligence will recruit more than you previously had ever been able to imagine.

For this to be a possibility, however, you must not see the pursuit as daunting. If you’re concerned about basic happiness or security within a framework, you’re toast before you begin. You must instead raise your level of joy and aliveness to new heights and find people who are willing to undertake such a mission like it’s for their own life and inspire them to live with similar levels of bliss.

I’ll say it all differently: if we no longer associate bliss with completion and therefore exhaustion, we can use our feelings as perpetual fuel rather than as reward in rare moments of progress. For this to remain a possibility in moments of extreme intensity, which is inevitable in the creation of anything worth lifetime(s) of dedication toward, you must become a master of regulating your state. Of discernment on all levels. Of what you want your life to be about.

How do you know when this is where you’re at?!

Well, let’s look at what your motivation or in other words your feeling basis for what your vision or desire is.

If it’s coming from a place of pain or fear, or in other words a desire for security or comfort, there’s a chance that your fire will be quelled at some point along your journey.

This is also why a long-standing vision, one that extends beyond your lifetime, will help ensure that there can always be more added into the mix of creating bigger fodder for the flame.

If your dream is in some way to contribute to the larger wellbeing of the planet and all its life forms, it will bring you more alive in the process.

Truly, it is that simple.

But it takes the awareness of your own self and how you integrate and mix with that which you see as other than your self. The fact of the matter is that not every single person is willing to do the work that is necessary to dig into their own awareness, trauma, pain, for fear of suffering, discomfort, shining a light on their own ignorance. Let me be clear that when I say “work” I hardly mean sitting down and working toward a business or personal goal that they’ve set out as a benchmark for progress as we’ve discussed. That is what many would have you think is “hard work” in terms of the number of hours and “willpower” it is thought to require. Really, if you dig into your own self, including the weaknesses, irresponsibility, boredom, none of those traditional methods of force are necessary to achieve what you want.

Which brings us to…

Equip and Train

If you were to climb an actual mountain, the question of the potential success of the endeavor is only a question of competence. The mountain is the mountain. You must grow and endure the journey you intend to undertake. Maybe in your training environment you can never fully simulate the real thing. Sure, that is fine, but in your preparation to ascend, you put yourself through trials in which you test your competence every day if not several times a day. On flat ground first, then alternating rising and falling and flat stretches, like that.

All with the objective of obtaining a better sense of balance and strength. When the real moment comes, you better not be questioning or wondering whether you’re able, you must trust your preparation. In some cases you find a mentor, a teacher, a guide. Other times, you have a team. In rarer, you’re alone, and trust your intuition. I say rarer because this can often lead you into uncharted territory, and most are unwilling to be completely lost and free.

So when it comes to what you want or seek in your life, how to train? How to prepare? Of course, it depends where you intend to reach.

On the one hand, everything you do today can be seen as preparation for something in the future, something bigger. On the other hand, having a future goal is merely a tool to grow today. In that sense, everything today is an end by itself. Which brings us back to the notion of having big goals and dreams. This gives you the possibility of striving toward them today in your presence and actions.

Do you have to do this? Absolutely not. And there are definitely times in life to play around with different possibilities rather than choosing a deadline type of dream to forge ahead towards.

This data collection is needed in order to have a worthwhile vision in the first place. As children, we are naturally like this, absorbing as much as possible from our environment simply out of zest for newness of life. In many ways, this is a big differentiator between childhood and adulthood. A sense of new wonder for life and what it has to offer. Too often, the emphasis toward taking on a pursuit or a goal is done far too soon. Therefore, the possibility for growing can be curtailed — we grow best when we are receptive to what we are taking in! This goes for food, air, water, and for ideas and activities. As adults, thinking we know everything, we can sometimes filter out possibilities in narrowing our focuses toward a goal in addition to a hardened view of the world.

There are definitely times for focusing your attention and action rather than taking in/receiving new inputs. This requires a filter and it will default to that of your composed view of the world and its possibilities.

If you haven’t already, take the time to really look at your view of the world and to deconstruct it entirely to see where you readily defy and contradict yourself, particularly with regard to the life that you really want to live. Become like a child yet again, and allow life to touch and wonder you.

Better yet, it doesn’t have to be one or the other. You can design a life in which you sort of pretend to know everything for your day to day affairs, earn the living and money you require (and hopefully more). Then, have another approach to life entirely during other situations, in which you do not seek a particular thing — you do not feel the need to project your mind and thoughts onto situations. Instead, you are there to receive and experience the bewildering phenomenon before you.

Ultimately, it will be wonderful when you realize, experience for yourself the fact that you are not one against the rest of life — that you are life. You are inextricable from the process “around you,” and that what you are observing and feeling is your journey through an immensely varying set of stimuli which is depending upon you to interpret them, filter them, and appreciate them. It is the depth in the act of doing so — effortlessly — that makes life so eternally new, and really devoid of an ultimate peak.

Follow the Medium page @nrpanjwani and stay connected on Instagram @nrpanjwani