Resolutions and Social Networks

It was April already, and his New year’s resolutions were nowhere near to be completed: meet somebody new, exercise more, try something that scares you. Scratch that first one, won’t you? Meet somebody new? Say hi to the guy who sells coffee by the park, say “nice to meet you”, and there you go. What a joke. No: “Make more friends” is better, more solid. More challenging. 

Sitting in front of his computer, working from home since the covid-19 pandemic started, staring at his note taking app that holded his recently updated “New year's resolutions” list. He just changed a word, but this didn’t get him closer to his goal. How did he end up here? Four months of excuse crafting: I can’t work out today, it is pretty cold outside, tomorrow will be better. I have no time. I am too tired. Downloading Tinder or Bumble feels embarrassing. I work from home, there’s no way for me to meet new people. 

And then he did what every procrastinator extraordinaire does best: 

Scroll through Instagram. Look: Laura has the perfect life with her perfect child, oh: Rafa got a raise, amazing: your ex just got married. This exercise normally doesn’t help but in this case, the stars aligned and Instagram was paramount. The scroll down stopped at some Buddhist post. He didn’t care about Buddhism normally, it was probably an advertisement or something posted by one of his contacts. It didn’t matter, it looked as if the post had found him, though. 

What was the post about? It showed a picture of some sculpture of the Buddah, crossed legs, hand signaling, great lighting: the works. And over the picture there was a quote: “The problem with human beings is they think they have time”. That was it. He didn’t feel old, he felt ancient. What other projects he had left to wither? Learning the guitar? Be a good cook? All the resolutions from the thirty plus years behind him…  Ahora o nunca. 

Motivated, and a little sad, Luis interrogated the search bar of the social network. He started typing stuff like “friends” “exercise” “social activities” He was not sure of what he was looking for, he only knew he was not going to leave his seat until he found it. After who knows how many minutes, hours, whatever, he stumbled upon a sport that could kill two birds with one stone: Hiking. 

He was always curious about it but never actually tried it before. This was the time. He just typed the word in the search bar, picked the first one that said “Beginners'', and a phone number appeared on the screen. Off he popped. There was a trail on that very Sunday so he signed up. There was a fee for the trip which he paid immediately, classic technique, should Luis from the future get cold feet. He was just getting rid of any excuse, by design. Everything on the credit card, let Luis del futuro take care of that. What did the trail list say? Buy boots? Done! Get a fancy hiking backpack? You got it! Pack some food? Bet!  Wake up at 6am on a Sunday? Crap. 

So there he was, Sunday morning, line 3 of the subway in Mexico City. Did I mention all of this takes place in Mexico City? Everyone was holding coffee and scrolling on the phone. Luis was no exception so he started seeing the posts from the day before, and this is when another post came to his rescue. This one featured a guy in a suit climbing up stairs, you were not able to see the face but it featured a quote: “Success is the sum of small efforts, repeated day-in and day-out” He recognized the words of Robert Collier, sip his coffee and carried on. 

When Luis reached the station, he met up with the group. This was one of the most difficult parts of the assignment: Remember about five different names, try to pay attention to them and of course, recall how they look. At least finding them in the subway station was simple enough: just look for the guys carrying hiking backpacks. So there he was. Cut to his boots stepping on stone, on mud. Making the noise of soil and rocks being moved. He was stumbling, trying to move in his not-new but rusty body.  

“Small efforts” he’d repeat to himself, “day-in, day-out”. Whenever he reached the point where he was tired and he needed some motivation to help him keep up, he would re-examine the list in his head: Well, he was already scared, so first item off the list. He met new people but, as we discussed, that was not good enough for the resolution, he needed to make more friends. Working out more often? Not yet.  At the end of the hike they arrived at the top of the Pico del águila, the tallest point in Mexico City. It took a while to get there, and all of his effort. In the end, it was totally worth it. The view was something that would take anyone’s breath away. So many kinds of green, so many mountains and clouds. And the city was so small beneath his feet.  Better not to think about climbing down though. 

Next trials were far easier. They were still challenging and sometimes the height was hard on Luis’ lungs, but he kept going “small efforts, day-in, day-out” and they became easier. The views, the trees, being surrounded by nature, being able to climb rocks, little by little… he met more people and soon he started hanging out with these people outside the hiking trees. He made new friends (check). Another thing he noticed was that every new hill that got him tired, motivated him to increase his physical condition, so he started jogging almost every day after work. Soon enough he even lost weight and started feeling better about himself, due perhaps to the effect exercise has on a person’s general mood. 

His new friends started recommending books, movies. His money went to buy better climbing shoes, hiking backpacks, and paying for trails. He started to appreciate nature. Somewhere in a book someone recommended. the Prophet (Kahlil Gibran) there’s a part where it says every tree is a poem. That Sunday, when walking through the Desierto de los leones, he shouted: “We are walking through an anthology!” and someone, who got the reference quickly, replied: “Let’s hug a poem” and went on to hug a tree. 

After some time, Luis’ Instagram post read: #TBT to the first time I went on a hike! The post was a picture of him, looking in awe around the top of the Pico del águila. “Granted” he said as he showed the post to his friend, the one who hugged the tree “It has been only a couple of months since I started but I am just so proud”. By then his physical condition had improved significantly: check. He made some friends along the way, and every new trail carried with it the possibility of new friends, the groups always had new people to meet. So:check, check, and checkity check.

 He looked back to that day in April when he decided to go on a hike for the first time, in a rather unplanned way, and how scared he was.  How he tried to turn off his brain and relinquish any excuse it might pop.  Little by little, he had found something he loved, and he had changed a big part of his life. Now he was excited for the weekend, because of the new trail he would walk,  and now he had a group of friends to go on hikes with. 

To think a couple of months ago he was just completely overwhelmed by the possibility of being in a mountain, with a list of uncompleted new year’s resolutions. Just terrified to even start. “Look at me now” he thought, as he looked at his recent past like he looked at the start of the trail, when he was at the top of the mountain.