After a rough couple of weeks I have come to the realization that one of the hardest things to do in life is to check your own motives.
The last four or so months I have been training to hike Mt. Whitney.
All of our hikes had been fun and slightly challenging; I was growing and getting stronger.
For the last month and a half I have been dealing with major stress revolving around Whitney. What if I don’t summit? “I have to summit”, I would think to myself. But the doubt would creep in. What if..?
Finally within the last week I began feeling more confident about it and truly felt that I would make it if I just paced myself.
Yesterday I received an email that said, because of a fire, the road to the Whitney trailhead was closed until further notice. I began to spiral.
We are supposed to hike out July 3rd, a little over a week away.
The new stress of not being able to do it set in.
For some reason I felt the need to sit down and ask myself “why am I doing this?” Why do I feel like I’m going to fall apart if I don’t get to do this? Was I doing this because it’s a newfound dream or was there another motive?
It started as a dream. Then as time went on, more and more people found out about it and I took that as pressure to succeed. Because if all these people knew I was doing it and I couldn’t summit, I would be embarrassed.
It started as a challenge for myself, for me to prove to myself that I could do hard things. It ended up becoming me trying to impress others.
Then just like that the stress left. Once I realized I was no longer doing this for myself but to prove myself to others, it lost its power over me.
I was able to step back and return to the original point. I am doing this for me.
The point is to have fun.
To be challenged.
The point is to try, even if I don’t succeed.
It’s not easy to admit that you are doing things for the wrong reasons. But if I hadn’t stopped to question myself I would still be in that stressed out anxious place, trying to impress the world.
In the end, I’m the only one I need to prove myself to.
Lucky for me, I’m easily impressed.