How To Overcome Your Fears? (Part Two)
A view of me walking up the south side of Stawamus Chief towards the first peak in Squamish, British Colombia.
Step Two: Be Present.
The initial lunge over the mammoth-like boulder had distorted my balance, like an amateur tight rope walker. The sturdy wooden stairsteps provided a firm platform for me to cement my footing however, each subsequent step felt meters away from the one preceding it. Each overarching lunge induced flashbacks of my grueling leg workout just days prior. The thought of possibly having to tow my dilapidated body out of bed the next morning began to intimidate me. As I tried to steer clear from these thoughts, I sternly reminded myself, do not let this be your motivation.
Being roped in by such ideologically pathogenic thoughts can make one feel as if they are invisible to others in the present moment. The mind being in one place and the body in another, almost as if they belong to two separate entities. How fasci- THUMP.
Such mental pacing had finally caught up to me as I collided headfirst into a tree. Its presence was near imperceptible until it roused my suspended senses with a ruthless salutation.
Although, the baseball cap I was wearing helped curtail much of the impact, this was a much-needed wake up call. Not only because I was failing to appreciate what was in front of me but also because I had lost sight of where I was heading. As I trotted upwards over a series of sticks, twigs, and moistened dirt alongside a skeptical cliff, I thought to myself, Where the hell did he go?
I lifted my head approximately 45 degrees into the air and felt a faint blast of heat piercing through the lofty trees in the form of the summer sun. Standing on the cliff above, staring down from what appeared to be at least 150 feet in elevation, was my cousin. There he was. And here I was. In pursuit of seeking a shortcut, I had, subconsciously, wandered off the trail and found myself restrained between a couple of fallen tree branches and inevitable ambiguity.
With the ground below being as slippery and unpredictable as a thin layer of partially cracked ice and a 50-pound backpack strapped to my shoulders, I had silently prayed that an angel would descend from the heavens, gracefully scoop me up, and drop me off at the very top where my date with destiny was awaiting me.
Again, if I had let these domineeringly pessimistic psychological fantasies become my motivation, I would have stared off into oblivion hoping for a miracle while simultaneously cursing every individual who put me in this situation (me, and only me).
Instead of looking like a lost child in the aisles of a Walmart Supercenter, frantically wondering if his mother would eventually come find him, I needed to snap out of my fantasy world and recognize the blatant reality.
The idea of trying to multitask between anticipating a future self and executing a present self was not feasible. The mind and body must be in sync with one another, like that of a singer and his orchestra. If my motivation continued to be promulgated by skyrocketing fear, I might as well have raised the white flag at that moment.
Rather, my motivation needed to be, not the means to achieve a goal but, the goal itself. And I needed to remind myself what that goal was: to reach the pinnacle. To behold a scenery that I have never seen before. To be submerged in a feeling of everlasting elation that I have never felt before. To capture a photograph that I have never captured before.
That was it! That was the reason why I had a 50-pound backpack strapped around my back. It was not to have others think I was acting imbecilic on purpose. It was there to hold a single solitary yet sacred object: my motivation.
