Lessons Learned
Hopefully my words on this lesson learned can help, provoke thought, be interesting, or just be.
Today, was not my best day of climbing. I hit up Bradley with friends. I’m always psyched on Bradley because it is very close to where I live, plus I have a handful of awesome projects. Today, however, as stoked as I was when I started, my attitude did not remain the same. Today was a day that my ego did not stand very strong. The lesson I learned today, again, is that climbing is an individual quest hopefully surrounded by a solid support system. I got within my own head today. I stopped myself from remembering that climbing is what I put into it. It is solely on me. Yes it helps when I have good friends around me to help me climb better and get psyched, but it is what I choose to do with that encouragement that decides what it does. If I know that I am climbing with stronger climbers, sometimes I get it in my head that I should be that good. And when I do that, I do not give myself enough, or sometimes any, credit for what I have achieved as a climber. I think that I should be that good, or why should I even try, or I just watched you do it easily why would I want to continue to struggle on it. I did that today. I got in my own head. I got in my own way. I did not allow myself to fully accept that who I am as a climber is enough because I have worked hard on getting there.
I think often that I have learned and accepted this lesson; that climbing is an individual quest, it is not a competition. But I find that I have to relearn it more than I would ever like. I have a great passion for climbing and I have worked hard on my path. It is my hard work that has gotten me here. It is my friends that I have chosen to surround myself that have helped raise me up to get here. It is me. I do not need to be as good as anyone else, I do not need to look to others to see where I stand. I need only to look to myself and my heart to remind myself that I am a damned good climber and I deserve my best effort despite what anyone else does or says.
Climbing is my journey.
