The bear went over the mountain, the bear went over the mountain, the bear went over the mountain to see what he could see.
The other side of the mountain, the other side of the mountain, the other side of the mountain was all that he could see.

children's song sung to For he's a jolly good fellow

I used to climb mountains. Now I look at mountains and know. There isn't anything there that isn't here. Just the other side of the mountain. It saves lots of time and energy.

So instead of overcoming themselves they throw imaginary competition along the path, set goals to beat, see who can climb highest, who can get there the fastest. Gamify their life

Here on Turtle Island, back in 2007 when material gluttony was at one of its peaks my son had a home that overlooked a main artery out of two southern metropoli that fed into the desert where people took their dune buggies and motorcycles to race around in the sand on long fall weekends trying to justify the pain of their indenture. On a long weekend there were literally tens of thousands of trucks and motorhomes pulling toy trailers loaded with gas guzzling off road vehicles. Sometimes they would be creeping along at only a few mph: a traffic jam one hundred miles out of town. You could look and say, "there goes $250,000" and then the next vehicle, "there goes $175,000." And on and on for hours at a time all day long; millions upon millions of dollars worth of useless junk. All of it was paid for with borrowed money, equity pulled out of their houses, or credit cards maxed out. On the backs of many of these vehicles were bumper stickers stating: "He who dies with the most toys wins!" I used to laugh. He who dies with the most toys is dead.

For every trail you take there are a thousand that you will never know. Life is linear that way. And every trail leads to an abrupt and unavoidable cliff.