My hands are shredded.  Blisters on most of my fingers from a hard day of climbing.  The agonizing pain of climbing, for the first time in my life, a 5.11 wall.  I did this twice, on two separate walls.  Finally, after all that hard work, I broke the barrier to the next level.  I remember being lowered down after climbing that second wall, that amazing feeling… “I did it.  About time.”  The onlookers congratulated me as I was untying myself.  “Wow, you were determined.” said one fine young lady.  Determined?  Probably.  Persistent?  Most definitely.  Washing the chalk off of my hands with soap, felt like acid burning through my skin.  But man was it worth it.

After a year being stuck in the same level, I thought I had plateaued.  I thought I had reached the limits of my abilities, but mentally I wasn’t convinced.  And so I plugged away at it, and plugged away, and plugged away.  Somebody at the climbing gym jokingly said to me, “Its the devil inside of you, that makes you keep on trying.” and I would say that there’s definitely something inside, telling you to keep on trucking.  If there wasn’t, we’d still be living in caves hunting for food with our hands.

You know the story of Thomas Edison?  He failed at making the light bulb like 1000 times.  But he kept on trying and trying and trying and he eventually got it right.  Can you imagine if he quit, what our world would be like today?  Then there’s this guy named Ghandi, you may have heard of him.  Him and his followers were able to single handedly convince one of the most powerful army’s to ever grace this Earth to withdraw from his country and grant their independence, without the use of violence.  How did he do it?  Basically, he kept on nagging them and nagging them and nagging them until they eventually got so annoyed they left lol.  Now that is persistence.

Go out, take what is yours, and if you can’t get it, try again.  Keep on trying.  Spend the hours and years working to your full potential, and put your heart and soul into it.  Let yourself fail, but don’t let yourself stop trying.  Yes, you’ll be on the plateaus more than you’ll be on the peaks, but don’t let that slow you down.  You are a locomotive, and you can’t be stopped.  You are a menacing lion hunting for its prey.  You are awesome, and you are persistent.

As for me, what comes after climbing a 5.11?  Plug away, plug away, plug away, and aim for 5.12.  Like I keep saying, it never ends, and its the journey that counts.  There is no why.

“First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.” – Mahatma Gandhi