Stretching your limits

I began rockclimbing as a teenager one summer, and it has become a part of my life ever since.

In my twenties I pursued it with a fierce passion. I spent countless hours dangling from the side of cliffs in just about every major mountain range in the USA. During my thirties and forties I cooled a bit, due to professional and family obligations, but I still would get out on occasion. Lately I have been renewing my passion for rockclimbing, and over Thanksgiving spent three days climbing at Obed/Clear Creek in Tennessee. I think part of the reason I have reignited my interest is that rockclimbing can help me stretch my limits. Rockclimbing is both physically and mentally demanding. You must be able to calm your mind, focus on the task at hand, and use your body to unlock the sequences necessary to ascend the rock. If you just try to use brute force, you flail about and waste energy. If you let your mind get the best of you, you freak out, lose your focus and fail. The same can be said of life. When we are faced with life's demands, and we want to succeed, we must relax our mind, focus our attention and work out the series of steps to solve our problem.