Over the Hill

As a 39 year old, some of you may consider me over the hill while some of the more “veteran” readers of this are laughing at me right now.  Let me tell you, 39 is not over the hill…not even close.  But what was on my mind this morning was a more literal meaning of “over the hill.”

I went out for a run this morning, and in order to get out of my neighborhood, I spend 6 minutes running up hills.  No matter how good or how bad I feel, it always takes me 6 minutes to get to a flat area.  My mindset when I begin the run is “I just want to get over the hill.  Then I can coast.”  If you know anything about south central Pennsylvania, you will know that I had more hills to run up – and down – and up again.  I had more hills to get over.

I think we often have the mentality that once we get to the top of the hill or over the hill, we can just put it on cruise control and coast.  While there is certainly nothing wrong (in fact, I highly recommend it) with taking pause at the top, enjoying the scenery, getting refreshed, I do believe that the very best people at whatever they do are constantly finding and even creating new hills to get over.