Climbing vs. Falling

By Greg Baer M.D.

November 21, 2014


I saw a couple for marital counseling. She listened to every description of her mistakes as a human being and a partner. She told the truth, she felt loved, and she began to make different choices. He chose to defend himself, blame her, and refuse any responsibility for his personal unhappiness or the contention in his marriage.

I continued to observe her and admired her climb upward in life. As I spent time with both of them, it occurred to me that climbing a mountain—much like life—can involve any number of routes. With each step, we choose to climb left or right. We choose where we put our hands and feet. We take the gradual path or the steep one. We can scale the north face or the south one. So many choices.

But falling off a mountain involves far fewer choices. Gravity takes over, and we simply bounce our way to the bottom. We can’t choose which face of the mountain we’ll fall down, or which handholds we’ll use. We just fall.

And so it is with life once we ignore the laws that govern happiness. When we ignore them, we begin to fall. As with a physical fall, at first, we fall slowly. We may not even notice. But the fall accelerates—because of gravity as we fall physically, but because of foolish choices as we fall emotionally.

Climb. Climb the mountain of life. There are so many choices to make—so many good and enjoyable choices—and the view becomes increasingly exhilarating as we go. Don’t choose the steps and paths that are known to fail. Don’t choose to fall and lose all ability to make any more choices. Make the choices that lead upward, and the choices will continue to multiply

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About the author 

Greg Baer, M.D.

I am the founder of The Real Love® Company, Inc, a non-profit organization. Following the sale of my successful ophthalmology practice I have dedicated the past 25 years to teaching people a remarkable process that replaces all of life's "crazy" with peace, confidence and meaning in various aspects of their personal lives, including parenting, marriages, the workplace and more.

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