Not many adults would readily choose to describe themselves as a failure. Success is important and appearing successful even more so.聽
However, during my time living in Squamish and exploring the mountains and wilderness here, I鈥檝e come to realize that this tendency to view failure as something negative was stifling my ability to grow as a person.聽
There are many reasons to venture out into the wild and to climb a mountain, and many have attempted to describe why they choose to do so. It鈥檚 easy to understand the physical benefits of such an endeavour, but the most valuable benefit of all, in my opinion, is what these adventures teach me about myself and the world around me. As hours pass by on the trails, my muscles burning from pushing uphill and my heart beating into my throat from the dizzying drops over the cliffs that I pass by or ascend, I begin to learn a lot about who I really am.聽
It鈥檚 easy to create a facade in polite, modern society that gives the appearance of success, but this is stripped away when you allow yourself to climb up to where only the clouds and the mountain goats dare. On one such adventure, when I turned around due to fear and exhaustion, I learned a lot about what it means to fail. I had set out to climb Mount Tantalus via a long and arduous traverse that started north of Squamish at Sigurd Creek. I managed to get as far as a saddle below Pelion Mountain. As I crested that saddle, Mount Tantalus came into view before me, and the route ahead proved extremely intimidating. I lost my nerve.
A few months earlier, I had climbed Omega Mountain near Squamish and torn a ligament in my ankle near its summit when I stepped on a rock that gave out below me. What had been up to that point a pleasant ascent turned very serious. I couldn鈥檛 put my weight on my foot, nor was I able to reverse the route I had taken to get up this mountain.聽
To add to this, four other people were with me, and my predicament was now their burden. We had cellular reception on this mountain, so we called Search and Rescue. Within an hour some of Squamish SAR鈥檚 brave volunteers had reached me on this mountain via helicopter. They bundled me up inside and flew me to Squamish. It was my first trip in a helicopter but I hardly remember it. My mind was clouded with the embarrassment of needing to be rescued but also shock that my positive experience on this mountain could so quickly turn negative with a single loose rock causing my ankle to give out.聽
Months later, my ankle had healed enough to head into the mountains again but as I stood there, on the saddle below Mount Pelion, looking out on Mount Tantalus, I realized that my confidence to be in this place had not yet been restored.聽
As I hiked out, defeated, my morale at an all-time low, I tried to understand why I was defining my effort as a failure.聽Unlike this modern age of sensory distractions, it鈥檚 easy when I鈥檓 hiking for hours to work through a thought in my mind without any interruptions.聽I tried to think back to a time when failing didn鈥檛 matter. Before starting a career and even earlier, before worrying about grades at school, I recalled a childhood with long summers off with nothing to do but play outside.聽
I don鈥檛 remember a week going by when my elbows and knees weren鈥檛 scabby from falling, but I never thought of those scrapes and bruises as indicators of my failure. Instead, I wore them with pride. Scraped-up knees and elbows meant I was out there playing and trying. Back then, I hadn鈥檛 yet learned the definitions of success and failure. There was just play, and sometimes I fell and learned a lesson, and sometimes I didn鈥檛. The process of trying things and figuring out how to do what the other kids were doing was all that mattered.聽
Fast-forward into my adult years, and I realized that I hadn鈥檛 tried a lot of different things because of fear of failing at them. When I moved to Canada in 2010, I was an extremely overweight guy in his late 20s who had lived a very safe life up to that point. I had effectively avoided failing by never trying.聽
What Squamish did to me, though, was fuel a curiosity to explore the wild, and if I was to do so, I would need to redefine what failure meant to me.聽
I鈥檝e had individuals tell me that I had seen parts of the wild around Squamish that most will not see in their lifetime and I largely put that down to developing a different perspective on failure.聽
The mountains are untamed, and the weather and conditions define the wild. If I were to always wait for the right time, I鈥檇 never go. Failure to reach the destination has to be an option; otherwise, it would be impossible to head into the wild at all.
Over the years I鈥檝e reached quite a few summits, but many times I haven鈥檛. I鈥檝e headed out and for one reason or another, turned back before the destination. Sometimes it鈥檚 simply a case of bad weather and conditions, but other times the reasons are more complicated, such as conflicting personalities in the group, fears and stress coming to the surface, inexperience or overconfidence.聽
I will admit to initially deeming these attempts that ended in not reaching the destination as failures. But, with time, I began to see them like my younger self might have, as simply a lesson to be learned.
When I hike out after not achieving the summit, I ask myself: 鈥淲hat is the lesson here?鈥� It instantly changes my perspective from viewing the failed attempt as a negative to a positive. It gives me the opportunity to figure out what I need to focus on to be better the next time I head into the mountains.聽
Honestly, I appreciate the times when I hit my limit and need to turn back. I learn more on those occasions now than when success comes easy.聽
There is a much greater satisfaction in reaching a summit I have attempted numerous times before than the summits I can reach easily on my first attempt.
You don鈥檛 need to climb mountains to change your perspective on failure, but it helps. When you try and don鈥檛 succeed, look for the lesson that can be learned. As one saying goes: Try and fail, but don鈥檛 fail to try.
