It’s easy to focus on the next promotion or the completion of a big project that will elevate your career.
By succumbing to the natural instinct of mimicry, we rarely ask ourselves the question: are we climbing the right hill?
In this analogy, the hills represent any long-term goal: career, fulfillment, financial security. Our natural instinct is to walk upward, chasing the next promotion or job opportunity. However, we lose the virtue of randomness by doing this. If your only benchmark is the hill you’ve always known, you have no way to gauge its relative steepness. It’s a good way to reach a local maxima, but not necessarily the best long-term option.
Instead, I allow myself to explore other options, even if it seems “downhill”. For naturally ambitious people, it can seem downright impossible to avoid this instinct. It’s hard, and often feels unnatural. However, the perspective gained from these excursions improves my mental map and I’m able to learn what lies on other hills. Taking this mindset means letting go of the mimetic behavior that leads to jealousy or comparison.
After all, why should it matter if someone else is higher? Your peak is somewhere else entirely.
https://sundayscaries.substack.com/p/climbing-the-right-hill...