First installment of "Lessons from the Mountain" by Jeff Justman

Reminiscing of my college days I remember when I used to fall asleep during Psychology 101. My professor had the classic voice like the teacher in the movie “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.” In a monotone voice I can still hear him call out, “Justman….Justman….Justman” until I finally woke up to say “HERE!” My semester full of Psychology sleeping was finally awakened when we studied Dr. Martin Seligman’s theory of learned helplessness and optimism.

Now at first I thought “yeah, yeah, the glass is either half empty or half full. What difference does it make”? It wasn’t until I started climbing high mountains when I figured out how important it is to be absolutely optimistic and how it drastically affects one’s life.

This past spring on Manaslu (8163m), the eighth highest mountain in the world, I once again received a huge lesson on how important it is to be optimistic in the face of great adversity. During the 55 days our team and I spent on the mountain, it snowed 49 days! It became a broken record as every day at ten or eleven o’clock in the morning it would begin to snow.  And it is my guesstamation that during the entire expedition it snowed close to 15 meters.

Page Two

Pictures copyright©Jeff Justman

Jeff Justman, veteran climber, author and motivational speaker. To book Jeff e-mail

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