The Mountain Is You

SCHEDULE TIME TO DO NOTHING
Happiness is an active pursuit as much as it is a passive 
one. Though to feel fulfilled each day is absolutely a con-
scious choice (it isn’t going to happen by accident, FYI) 
the irony of really feeling good is that it’s not something 
you can force; it’s something you have to allow. 
Happiness is refusing to fill your schedule to the absolute 
brim so you can wring the most you possibly can out of 
every second of your life. It is also taking time to embrace 
the mundanity of everyday moments. It’s sitting back and 
reading a book, talking over dinner with someone you 
love, or just enjoying the small things each day. Taking 
this time won’t happen on its own; you have to plan for it.
SCHEDULE TIME TO PLAY
When we were kids, all we did was imagine and play. Our 
lives were our canvases, and we inherently understood 
that we could make believe absolutely anything and spend 
the day living it out.

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BRIANNA WIEST
The same is true in adulthood, but over the course of a 
few decades, the world tends to have a way of beating 
the magic out of you. If you really want to enjoy life, you 
have to make time to do what you loved when you were 
young. Paint, play in the sand, play games you love, and be 
creative for the sake of it.
If that all sounds childish, good. It means you’re ready 
to reconcile with your inner child who is and always has 
been there all along. Enjoying life is living it out in both 
the simplest and most transformative ways possible. Part 
of that is simply letting yourself show up and be who and 
how you are.
B E C O M I N G A M A S T E R O F Y O U R S E L F
When you get to the end of your life, you will begin to see 
your mountains for what they really were. Gifts. 
When you look back on your life, you won’t remember the 
hardships. You’ll see them then as pivot points, growth 
opportunities, the days of awakening right before every-
thing changed.
To become a master of oneself is first to take radical and 
complete responsibility for your life. This includes even 
that which is beyond your control. A true master knows 
that it is not what happens, but the way one responds, that 
determines the outcome. 

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BRIANNA WIEST
Not everybody gets there. Most people live barely realiz-
ing that they are creating most of the waves in their lives 
and that it is also their job to learn to ride them. Most 
people spend their days lost in a fog of their own thoughts 
and feelings, having little ability to sort through them.
Mastery is to realize that we are equipped with the exact 
traits we need to overcome the mountains before us, and 
in fact, doing so is the ultimate calling of our lives. We are 
not only capable; we are destined.
Mastery is to finally understand that the years of discom-
fort you endured were not some sort of purgatory you 
had to just get through. They were your deepest inner self 
informing you that you are capable of more, deserving of 
better, and meant to transform into the person of your 
dreams.
You must claim it. You must create it. Your own healing 
process will create an invisible ripple effect on the collec-
tive. If we want to change the world, we change ourselves. 
If we want to change our lives, we change ourselves. If we 
want to scale the greatest mountains before us, we change 
how we arrive at the path.
When you reach the peak of it all—whatever that may be 
for you—you will look back and know that every step was 
worth it. More than anything, you will be overwhelmingly 
grateful for the pain that led you to begin your journey, 
because really, it wasn’t trying to hurt you as much as it 

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was trying to show you that something was wrong. That 
something was the risk of your potential remaining un-
tapped, your life spent with the wrong people, doing the 
wrong things, and wondering why you never felt quite right. 
Your life is just beginning.
One day, the mountain that was in front of you will be so 
far behind you, it will barely be visible in the distance. But 
who you become in learning to climb it? That will stay 
with you forever.
That is the point of the mountain.

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R E F E R E N C E S
1 Halifax, Joan. Standing at the Edge: Finding Freedom Where Fear & Courage