Araz Gholami

In mountaineering, there’s an unwritten value in choosing a route that hasn’t been climbed before, seeing and experiencing things that no one else has. Even more valuable is creating a new path that others can follow. This unwritten value has cost many lives. For instance, three Iranian climbers on Broad Peak got lost and died while returning from a route they were the first to climb. The mountain had five other routes, but they risked their lives for that sixth path. This illustrates that the matter is serious and significant.

The choice of path and the way we perceive phenomena in life carries a similar value. Sometimes, this value is lost when we conform to others’ perspectives, causing us to miss the chance to experience things through our own lens.

This perspective has influenced many areas of my life. For example, after understanding the themes of The Idiot or Catcher in the Rye, I avoided reading them for a long time to let my own thinking mature and solidify without being directly influenced by their content.

Derek Sivers, in his book Anything You Want, recounts a time he worked somewhere and decided to resign. A month before leaving, he found his replacement and taught them everything necessary to continue the work. When he officially resigned, he introduced his successor and left, ignoring the surprised looks of his boss, thinking he had just done something ordinary.

Years later, when one of his employees resigned and told Sivers, “Finding my replacement is your problem, not mine,” he realized the resignation process wasn’t handled the same way. If he had tried to follow the same process in his youth, he might never have undertaken the valuable act of preparing his successor. Sivers concludes that sometimes it’s better to revisit ordinary tasks and see if there’s a better, more correct way to do them.