Faking Authur’s Seat

I have to admit that Edinburgh is a pretty cool city.  The people are kind, the food is pretty tasty and there’s loads to do.  But you know what else is pretty spectacular about this awesome little place?  The view.  Seriously.

Edinburgh is just one step away from the movie set of Harry Potter.  It’s medieval as they come and it feels pretty mysterious; I mean, there’s a castle on a giant cliff you can see from every point of the city!  And, you can weave up and down and around multiple bends and be lost for hours on end and never even know it, because when you look up, you feel like you’ve stepped back in time.  You can feel the magic of this place and what’s even cooler?  Edinburgh is basically built on a remnant of a volcano.  Yep.  I’m not kidding.

About a two kilometer walk down hill from Edinburgh Castle is Arthur’s Seat.  Arthur’s seat is an old extinct volcano left over from the Carboniferous age that’s a 250 meter high cliff face on the edge of town.

Now when you first look at Arthur’s Seat, you initially feel… “Hell yeah!  I can walk up there and climb that thing!”  And, if you’re anything like me, you’ll walk down to Arthur’s seat, have a look at the monstrosity, shake your head and say, “Oh hell no!” …and want to give up and walk back to the pub to drink beer whilst wallowing in self-pity…

But here’s the thing… When I sucked it up and finally started to walk up Arthur’s Seat, I discovered that this little hike was actually a great metaphor for life!  It’s only natural to feel like crap in life when we first see a challenges as big and as bad as a giant cliff face… We freeze may freeze, want give up and then walk away.  Now in reality, when we finally get going by putting one foot in front of the other, we may realise that the challenge isn’t that bad to begin with or we just need to fake it until we make it (and in my case, faking Arthur’s Seat).

What also helped me get up that hill is when I kept seeing 90 year old ladies having no issues walking up the hill.  I was kinda like… if granny can hike up that, mountain what’s stopping me? Perhaps that’s what we need more in life… maybe do more research to see how other people have done things and ways they have done them and then just try it for ourselves.

All up, it took me all up about 30 minutes to get from the bottom to the top.  When I finally made it to the top, I was pretty surprised.  The sun was just starting to set and I had a gorgeous view of all of Edinburgh!  I was standing on a cliff face that seemed entirely hard and unattainable at first, was actually super easy to get to the top!  

So, I guess walking up Arthur’s seat was bit of a life lesson.  At first, we may be faced with what looks like a big and scary challenge… but in reality, if we put one foot in front of the other, it’s not really that bad.   Bit by bit, I eventually made it to the top and, there was a massive payoff of an incredible view. 

I guess what I am saying is, if you want something, give it a go… try it out.  It’s ok to fail.  It’s not gonna feel good to fail, but sometimes if we don’t try, we’ll never know.

Next time you’re in Edinburgh, go check out Arthur’s Seat.. I think you’ll surprise yourself.