I hope Ben Saunders won’t mind me stealing his idea of flagging up interesting chunks of text to provoke a bit of thought and self-reflection. Here goes with tough, tell-it-as-it-is climber, Mark Twight:
“Memories and hope are not so different; one is ‘having done’ the other is ‘to do.’ Neither constitutes action. You are what you do; thus, if you do nothing, you are nobody. If you once did great things, you think you are great. You coast along on dead, preserved laurels, lifeless and wasting away.
I spent 12 weeks on crutches after knee surgery. During recovery I surrounded myself with wannabes, pretend-to-bes, has-beens and never-will-bes. I met people who wasted their talent or were afraid of it. They taught me why I hadn’t become a good climber. Like them, I was afraid to succeed, scared to commit. I didn’t want to be any better than anyone else. Eventually, I sickened of people, myself included, who don’t think enough of themselves to make something of themselves – people who did only what they had to do and never what they could have done. I learned from them the infected loneliness that comes at the end of every misspent day. I knew I could do better.”
Read more of Mark’s essays here. He’s a very good writer.
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One Comment
Great inspiration.