Immense Ranges of High Mountains

How many times have you had a whole new set of obstacles appear in front of you just when you thought you had a change completed in your organization?

Too many times to count?

Me too.

At those moments you may have felt like sitting down and giving up or turning around and going back to the start, abandoning your hopes of ever implementing your vision for your organization.

It’s at those moments that I think of Captain Meriweather Lewis, high atop Lemhi Pass on August 12, 1805.  Captain Lewis, his co-captain William Clark and their Corps of Discovery had journeyed the many miles from St. Louis, fighting the waters of the mighty Missouri River the whole way.  Early in the day on August 12th, Captain Lewis and a small band had found the headwaters of the Missouri and according to Lewis’ journal,

McNeal had exultingly stood with a foot on each side of this rivulet and thanked his god that he had lived to bestride the mighty & heretofore deemed endless Missouri.”

After the momentous moment of discovering the headwaters of the Missouri, Captain Lewis climbed higher onto the ridge, hoping to see the mountains give way to the Pacific Ocean.  With the early mountain winter quickly approaching, Captain Lewis hoped to see the foam and waves and smell the salt air.

Instead, Captain Lewis was greeted with the sight of row upon row of mountains, stretching out before him and his weary party.

He said,

…we proceeded on to the top of the dividing ridge from which I discovered immense ranges of high mountains still to the West of us with their tops partially covered with snow.” – Captain Meriweather Lewis, August 12, 1805

It would take the captains and their party until November to reach the Pacific.  In the meantime they would fight through early mountain snows, near starvation, terrible river rapids (so terrible the Indian tribes would line the shores to watch the strange men drown–none did), and unceasing rains.

If the Corps of Discovery could make it beyond Lemhi Pass, out to the Pacific and back to St. Louis, then you and I can pull ourselves up when a new batch of obstacles appear and continue our journey toward implementing our visions, our changes.

Why not try?