The North Side of the Mountain

A shipbuilding company had this statement in its advertisement: “All our timber comes from the north side of the mountain.”

Why the north side? What does that have to do with timber? After investigation, I found out that the best timber grows on the north side of the mountain because of the rigors of Mother Nature. The snow is deeper, the cold is colder, the wind is stiffer, and the sun is not so warm as the south side of the mountain. The harshness of the weather is a contributing factor to the toughness of the timber.

Human character is not much different from timber. Often the best in personality grows on the “north side of the mountain.” We grumble about our hardships and difficulties, yet those difficulties help us to grow and become mature. Each of us can look at our lives and see that the times when we made the greatest personal progress were probably when we were living on the ‘north side of the mountain.’