No One Cares That You Climb

You’ve just fallen off a climb well below your pay grade, a climb you’ve done a few times or even worse, your standard warm up. You hit a patch of high gravity and it feels as if forces beyond your control made you take that fall. You let your belayer know you’re climbing again and as you get back on the wall you can hear the friendly conversation resume below you, barely interrupted by your failure to send.

You start thinking up excuses for when you get back down to your friends: blame it on the heat, or what you ate for breakfast. But casting a glance back down, you see that no one is even looking up at you. And then, you are smacked in the face with the startling realization: no one cares that you climb.

That doesn’t mean they won’t be rallying their support when the time comes for you to push yourself on your project. Your friends aren’t bad people, or horrible climbing partners. It’s just that everyone has their own individual goals, setbacks, and lives that are completely de-centered from yours.

So before you single yourself out as the most unimpressive human on the planet in this moment of seeming shame, remember, no one really cares what you are doing up there. This also means that you don’t have to give an excuse for falling. You are in complete control of your climbing, how hard and when you push yourself. Sure, you may feel embarrassed at times, but in the end all you have to focus on is what inspires you, because did you really get on this rock for anyone but yourself?

Gracyn Overstreet loves rock climbing. This is her first post for SplitterChoss.com.