The man pushed against the boulder, moving it slowly up the mountainside. It wasn’t very round. It was more of a triangular shape. When he pushed the boulder, the rough edges often dug into the hillside, making it harder to move. The man really needed the boulder to move out of his way. He really wanted to climb the mountain, he felt like he would always be unhappy until he climbed the mountain.

The man stepped back for a minute to examine his work. He had been attempting to push the boulder up the hill for years now. At first, there was a little progress. The boulder would flip over. Sometimes it would slide when it was under intense pressure. Sometimes the man could apply a lever and flip the boulder over, projecting it upward. Lately, he hadn’t made any progress. One of the protruding edges had lodged itself into the mountainside and the boulder was stuck. The harder he pushed the more the boulder became lodged in place.

The man took a few more steps back from the problem. He thought about the goal from a higher level. “What am I really trying to accomplish,” he thought to himself.

The man recognized that he felt a strong desire to climb the mountain. The boulder was on the path that blocked him from climbing the mountain. He had spent years trying to push the boulder up the path so that he could proceed forward.  This made his pace slow.

The man thought about other paths that might be available to him. He wondered if he really needed to move the boulder or if he could simply climb up the mountain using a different path. He climbed a nearby tree to get a higher vantage point. He looked around, and as he did, he saw several paths that climbed up the mountain.

The man had been pushing the boulder, which meant that the boulder would always be in front of him, impeding him. The man realized that the boulder could be left by itself. He could allow it to roll down the hill. He could push it aside. He could go around it. There were many options he could take. He didn’t even have to walk the path he was on. He could walk on a different path.

The man had focused on moving the boulder for so long that his focus had been on the boulder. When he took a step back and thought about what he really wanted, he realized that there were many ways to get to the top of the mountain. The boulder was only impeding him because he hadn’t stopped to think about what he really wanted and he hadn’t climbed to a high enough vantage point to look for other available trails.