Summiting my Capitan – Day 4 on the blogging trail

"This is not an effort to 'conquer,'" Jorgeson said Tuesday on Twitter, from 2,000 feet (610 meters) up the side of El Capitan. "It's about realizing a dream."

Since I seem to have set off on a hiking metaphor on my blogging journey, I thought it fitting to pay homage to Tommy Caldwell and Kevin Jorgeson, who captivated the attention of the world this week by making the first free ascent of the Dawn Wall to the summit of the 3,000-foot rock known as El Capitan in Yosemite National Park.

I caught a snippet of an interview with Caldwell and Jorgeson on NPR yesterday, in which the interviewer was asking Jorgeson what was going through his mind during that time period when he climbed and fell 11 times, before finally managing to scale one particularly difficult section.  You know what he said? “Resolve and determination.”  

Holy wow!  How many of us have that kind of persistence, determination and the courage to persist in and believe in the manifestation of our dreams when faced with repeated “failures”?  How many times do we give up on our dreams when the first obstacle rears its head, let alone the 11th?  How easily do we pack it in when things don’t go as expected?

I’ll tell you something. Next time I am tempted to use “failure” as an excuse not to go forward, next time my foot slips and I go tumbling into space, next time I look ahead and don’t see the way up…. I’m going to remember those words, and those moments on the face of El Capitan, and take my cues from Kevin Jorgeson.

President Obama tweeted,  “ So proud of @TommyCaldwell1 and @KJorgeson for conquering El Capitan. You remind us that anything is possible.”

So remember beloved reader, anything is possible!



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