A Higher Calling by Harold Earls IV & Rachel Earls

Author:Harold Earls, IV & Rachel Earls [Earls, Harold & Earls, Rachel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: The Crown Publishing Group
Published: 2020-06-02T00:00:00+00:00

HAROLD

Would I still have decided to go if we’d already been married when the idea first came up? Wow, that’s a great question. The truth is, I don’t know. What I do know is that I was acting completely out of self-interest in my barracks room that day when I decided to climb Everest. Rachel was my first serious relationship, and until that point in my life, I had only made decisions that were in my personal best interest, since I had been responsible for only myself.

Everest had nothing to do with what was best for Rachel or our family. In fact, it stood between Rachel, me, and our future family. I put a deadly wedge between us by choice. At the time, I don’t think I really understood what it meant to make decisions based on what was best for our family.

I don’t think I started thinking in terms of “us” until quite some time after we were married. In our first year of marriage, we argued about me not being considerate of Rachel and not being a team player.

I have always been a great team player in any team or organization I’ve been a part of, but when it came to our relationship, I struggled to do the same. I think this holds true for a lot of people. We neglect or take for granted those who are closest to us because we are focusing on what’s outside our inner circle.

How could I make a decision that put our marriage in jeopardy without even getting Rachel’s input? It’s human nature to be self-oriented, but being team-oriented in a marriage is something I needed to conscientiously practice.

If I were given the same opportunity today to climb Everest for the first time, I would undoubtedly say no. Every day, I see the beautiful life I get to live with Rachel, and I would not be willing to risk what we have. I didn’t see or appreciate that back then, but I do now.

While the information we were getting indicated the mountain would reopen for the 2016 climbing season, there was no guarantee, so we were operating on faith that we’d even get a chance to try. It was an exciting time because if we did get the go-ahead, the USX team would be among the first teams to climb once the government reopened the mountain.

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