"First there is a mountain, then there is no mountain, then there is."
- Buddhist proverb.

I'm not sure where I came up with this for a blog entry but it should provide some thought provoking err... thought.
There are so many meanings that one can apply to this proverb, and it's probably why I like it so much. My take on it is this:

You are something if you are nothing after having been something.

'What the..?' I hear you say.

Let me explain why I think it talks about three stages in life.

One starts out in life full of aspirations, goals, challenges...dreams. You set these goals and challenges for yourself based on what others think you should be, for at this stage you are usually young and impressionable. Once, having realised these goals (but not necessarily achieved them..there is a difference, and if you don't understand what this is then this blog entry will be lost on you), you have become something, a success, a failure..something, it matters not what. Not everyone moves past this stage of life, they get caught up in the machine of their society and continue in this stages tiny circle. For me, the 'mountain' represents the 'challenge' whatever that may be.

Those that do move past the first stage come to realise that life is more than being driven to becoming the success that was placed upon them in the first stage, In other words 'Keeping up with the Joneses'. In this second stage they become free to choose to do whatever they desire to do/be, rather than what society, friends, family think they should be or be doing. Now that one is free, there is no 'mountain'. Having been something, there are no longer any hurdles or challenges, nothing... only dreams, only freedom.

The final stage is this: Having met the challenge and become something, and after realising freedom over those challenges, to choose for oneself, one has become SOMETHING. One has BECOME the mountain.

"First there is a mountain, then there is no mountain, then there is."

...Just my thoughts on the matter.