For me, life, being alive is about more than having air in our lungs and going through the motions. I don’t want to just fill space. I want to feel alive and for me that means growing. I want to be able to say today I am a bit better then I was yesterday. Living is reaching beyond where you are to do more. That might be a leap or just a very small baby step.
Personally, I prefer the baby steps. I think because success is more likely when you move slowly. Such as when I do my workouts. Maybe I just did one more rep or ran just a tenth of a mile further, but it was an improvement, it was growing.
If you know me at all you know I tend to be very passionate. One of my passions is climbing, but why. I have asked myself this because the logical side of my brain wants a logical answer. The simple, and very real, answer is that it connects the body and soul. But I also knew there was something more about climbing.
Then one day while chatting in the climbing gym it hit me. Climbing like nothing else I know constantly encourages you to grow, to reach beyond where you are to do more. Maybe there are experts out there that can say they have all of climbing mastered. Maybe there are pros that can say they have climbed all of the hardest climbs. But I have yet to meet such people and I am certainly no where near there.
For sure nearly all activities, physical or mental have opportunities to grow. But for me, climbing is different in that it pulls you forward. It seems to grab onto your soul and say this is the next step. There is always something new to learn, a body part to strengthen, a technique to master. I love this about climbing, it is always challenging me. It is allways calling me to be a better person. It is, for me the epitome of life, of living. It is your body, mind, and soul reaching stretching to do more. And in this it makes me feel so alive, so very in the moment alive.
