The Thing About Crossroads

August 14, 2011. I walked out my front door well before sunrise. August mornings here can dawn above 80 °F (27 °C) and that morning was no exception. I set out with my youngest brother-in-law (who was 16 years old at the time) to conquer one of the tallest mountains (Lone Peak) in our area¹.

I was in the best physical shape of my life. For 3 years, I’d run 3 to 5 times a week and averaged more than 30 miles a week. I even went to the gym on occasion. I ate well; slept okay; had a great relationship with my wife and kids.

We climbed fast, reaching the top just about noon. I felt a little sick to my stomach. We rested a while, had some food, and started our return trip.

Part of the hike crosses a large boulder field with no clearly marked trail. We wandered, trying to find where the trail became visible again. We took a wrong turn and were lost for about 45 minutes.

Those 45 minutes nearly cost me my life.

At 3:00 pm, the nausea I felt was almost overwhelming. It was above 100 °F with very little shade. I drank a lot of water on the way up, but had been reduced to sipping water; fearing that I would vomit any moment.

3:30 pm. We had to stop every 10 minutes so I could rest for 5.

4:00 pm. For the next hour, we walked for 5 minutes and rested for 10.

5:00 pm. I collapsed on the trail, literally face-down in the dirt. We were on the Western slope of the mountain, probably less than 2 miles as the trail went from the parking lot.

I could see my car.

The first thing to go was my ability to move my arms and legs.

Then speaking.

Then consciousness.

We were blessed with great fortune that day. A father and his three adult sons arrived on the scene shortly after I collapsed. They had no medical training but could comfort my brother-in-law. Another hiker with nearly a gallon of water on an evening hike suddenly decided not to go and returned to where we were. I was in and out of consciousness and couldn’t drink anything but the water brought welcome relief to my parched brother-in-law. Also, we had enough cell phone coverage on the face of the mountain to call for emergency assistance.

7:00 pm. After trying to find their way around a fire now burning at the base of the mountain (I’m not making this up), search and rescue finally flew a helicopter in and landed it about a mile back up the trail on the only place flat enough to land.

When they reached me, the paramedics put IVs into both my arms. They gave me a full liter of fluid in each arm before they would move me. They tried to carry me on a stretcher but the trail was too steep so the search and rescue paramedics took turns literally carrying me on their backs.

8:00 pm. I was strapped into a helicopter and flown to the nearest hospital.

3 days later, I met with my primary care doctor. He looked through the emergency room notes. His comment to me shook me to the core, “If a few things had gone just a little bit differently, you and I would not be having this conversation because you wouldn’t be here anymore.”

I wish I could say that my experience gave me an unparalleled zeal for life. Truth is, there have been many times in the ensuing years when I’ve lived without really living.

The crossroad I faced on that fateful August afternoon was a literal one.

I chose wrong.

We got lost.

I almost died.

Most crossroads aren’t of the life-and-death variety — at least not in the literal sense. Big or small, however, you will face many crossroads in your life. Sometimes you will choose the direction you’ll go with almost no thought. Other times, however, you’ll stand at the crossroads — looking down the hundred feet or so you can see in either direction — and stay there studying those hundred feet over and over again, hoping the pathway will somehow look different.

Maybe they’re both good options and you’re trying to pick the greater of two goods.

Maybe their both terrible options and you’re trying to pick the lesser of two evils.

There’s a worn-out adage that indecision is, in fact, a decision. It’s a decision to do nothing.

While you’re studying out decisions in your minds, it’s okay to pause for a time at the decision crossroad. The danger lies in standing still. Indecision fuels future indecision. With enough indecision, you end up trapped in a veritable hamster wheel — always running but never going anywhere.

That’s not to say you should plunge headlong into decisions without an adequate understanding of the pros and cons of each option.

Eventually, though, you do have to make a decision.

We live in an unusual time where there is a great deal of economic uncertainty — fueled by the ongoing pandemic and people’s inability or unwillingness to rejoin the workforce. An estimated 4.3 million people quit their jobs in August in the United States alone. That’s an unprecedented number. Those are people who chose to leave their employment.

Some are holding out for better employment. Others are trying to figure out if they can subsist on the funny money being handed out by global governments in an effort to stimulate their economies.

Maybe you’re one of those people who will wait at the crossroads, hoping the guiding lights will turn on, telling you which way to go.

Or, maybe you left an employment situation that was not well-suited to your needs, skills, and desires. Maybe you’ll have the next billion dollar idea.

Soon or late, we’ll all arrive at that crossroads for the first or one-hundredth time. What will you do?

Will you wait?

Or, will you do what the former CEO of Dollar Shave Club Michael Dubin does and “stick your neck out and collide with life”?

For me, I’m doing the latter. After all, you only live once.

¹Lone Peak isn’t a huge mountain. It’s about 11,250ft tall (3,430m). It’s one of the tallest peaks in the Wasatch Front mountain range. It’s a crazy steep hike, though, which is what makes it so hard. Most people take 2 days to make the nearly, 6,500 ascent and come back. We determined to do it in one day.