High on a Hill

Here follows a tale about a girl's first mountain.
*spoiler alert* It's really a tale about the importance of expressing gratitude and empowering others. 

Eight years ago I was a risk-averse city girl who had never been up a mountain.
But then I was lucky enough to encounter one of those rare and special people - the kind that seem to know you better than you know yourself, and who use this power for good not evil.  The good, in this case, being:  getting me to scramble up to the top of Jack's Rake in the Langdales by telling a small, well directed fib about the difficulty of said scramble.

On reaching my first ever summit, feeling euphoric and leaping around singing "The hills are aliiiive.....", I discovered three things about myself:  1) I love mountains, 2) I'm not too shabby at scrambling and 3) I'm waaaay too trusting of people who say that something's 'really easy'...

Nowadays I'm a risk-averse country girl who has been up a variety of mountains.  Last week, for the first time since the first time, I went back up Jack's Rake, and I realised three different things:
1) Sometimes, people do and say small kind things without realising how profoundly these things empower and enrich the lives of others.
2) When this happens to us, sometimes we barely even acknowledge it ourselves, let alone express the due gratitude.
3) My knees may not be as reliable as they were, but I can still shimmy up a near vertical crack in a rock.

Because someone believed in me on one day eight years ago, I have since had some of the best days of my life out walking in the hills.

Wouldn't the world be a lovelier place if we all thought a bit more about what other people have unknowingly done for us, and said 'thank you'? And how great would it be to be on the receiving end, to know that you've somehow done some good for another person just by being yourself?

So I challenge you (and myself obviously, we're all in this together) to pay a bit more attention to the simple yet wonderful things that people do; to express genuine gratitude; to aspire to be a positive influence on someone's life; and to always show ecstatic appreciation of mountain tops by imitating Julie Andrews.  Or yodeling.

And I'll take this opportunity to say a massive thank you to my amazing walking buddy for (amongst countless other kindnesses) holding my banana...