I was leading a rock climb yesterday that is near the upper limit of my climbing ability, and, somewhat predictably, a long train of negative thoughts began clack-clacking its way through my mind. Some of these I must have spoken aloud, because, after catching my inevitable fall, my partner commented that I habitually had negative thoughts when climbing near my limit. Suddenly, as these things so often do, I realized that a certain behavior had got me where I was and more of the same certainly was not going to help.
The analogy to life is obvious. Our enduring patterns of behavior figure strongly in the "problems" we experience in life; yet all too frequently, we attempt to solve our problems using the same behaviors that got us into a particular predicament in the first place. Integral then, to moving ahead is realizing that we might have a hand in creating our own quandaries.
In any event, falling off once was stimulus enough for me to commit fully to the moves a second time around, and, yes, I finished the climb.
Nearing the top of Black Magic
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