Dealing with Failure, expectations and real life.

I would lie if I said I’m not an ambitious climber. Since the beginning, I didn’t want to climb the easy stuff, I wanted to climb higher, steeper, on smaller holds. This, in our world, translates directly to higher grades, 7a, 8a, 9b… but this approach of “ignoring the easy stuff” was so wrong.

Luckily for me, I have been able to find beauty on almost every piece of rock I climbed, regardless of the difficulty, and this, I believe, is key. Such a silly sport, right? Almost every time there is an easier way to reach the same spot we get stuck on, either behind the crag there is a path to the top, or an easier route next to the one I attempt. And yet I choose to fall again and again. I have failed in life, as a friend, as a son, as a professional climber… and still I want to be better. Climbing has given me the tools I needed to apply this goal-driven mindset that once I’m in there, there is nothing that will get in my way to get better, or is there? Life, me too, I have a life outside of climbing, future family, music, I like to dance… but I like to use this life as fuel to ignite the fire for growth.

Failure is such a bitch, the bitterest noun I ever swallowed, puagh! And yet it is essential for growth, my best friend, my nightmare, my fuel.

I love expectations, and I’m obsessed with them. I believe climbing and life, without expectations, is so boring. Why not keep growing, why not be better? We all live in communities where the person next to us excels at something. My philosophy is rooted in the fact that in climbing we are all one, and the better they are, the better I will be, because we are all a part of something bigger than just us. With this in mind, how could you not try to be better than yesterday? This is an expectation worthwhile chasing.

Make your peers better by inspiring them, pushing them, by growing yourself.

Eder