Mawson

I was reading about Sir Douglas Mawson the Antarctic explorer who reached the South Magnetic Pole in 1907.  He lived a full life and did some amazing things, but it was what he regarded as the high point in his life that blew me away.
He is well known as the famous explorer that trekked with others to the centre of Antarctica and on the way back lost all that were with him (one silently fell into a crevasse taking himself and all the food with him).  Mawson ended up eating all his huskies and falling into a crevasse himself.  He did not know it, but the sled had dug into the snow and that is what saved him.  With what he thought was all his strength he climbed gingerly up the rope and made it to the top only to have the snow give way and him plummet again.
Despite all the obstacles and difficulties, he made it to a camp with others and wrote about his experience later.  It was then he listed that experience in Antarctica as the high point in his life.  He acknowledged that that may seen strange considering all that was lost on the journey.
 It was his saying that that really blew me away.  His highest point was his lowest point.
That would seem to me incongruous if I had not experienced similar (not going to Antarctica).  I just found that at my lowest point I experienced a clarity like I had never before.  I have been wondering why that was and for me I think it was because at that point, everything was stripped away.  There was nothing to distract me.  Nothing that loomed larger than what I was experiencing.
In a sport I play, recently I was due to face a fellow, and he said he would be back but said he had something to attend to.  Someone said he had all this time to attend to that and was only doing it now.  I really felt like I understood where this guy was coming from.  That has not always been the case, but since the stroke I understand things I did not before.  This guy has cancer and health issues, and I am just glad he is there.
The point for me is there are some things that loom large.  Attending to them takes precedence over everything else.  For me everything else matters but does not matter most.  What matters most is attending to what is needed first.  Only when I have done that can I truly enjoy what ever else matters to me.  My moment of greatest loss becomes my moment of greatest gain.  My lowest point became my highest point.