Saturday, September 17, 2011

Be a Loser

Today I'm reminded of a song that, cheesy as it may be, holds a lot of truth and inspiration: "The Climb," by Miley Cyrus (of all people). I know, I know...I'm sure there are plenty of sarcastic, snide remarks about my questionable taste in music coming my way, but just hear me out... 


Today I climbed a mountain. Okay, I actually climbed about a tenth of a mountain. But my intentions were good. After my recent epiphany about being an "athlete" (see previous post), I figured I'd stop being an Eastern Mountain Sports poser and actually GO HIKING. I've done this before, so it wasn't my first time. But today felt different somehow. As I was scrambling over the rocks and making my way through what the trail guide called "moderately strenuous," I couldn't help but sing Miley to myself: "There's always gonna be another mountain. I'm always gonna want to make it move. It's always gonna be an uphill battle -- sometimes I'm gonna have to lose. It ain't about how fast I get there. It ain't about what's waiting on the other side: it's the climb." Granted, I also couldn't get Stevie Nicks out of my head: "I climbed a mountain and I turned around...and the landslide brought me down." In this case, though, Miley proved to be a bit more inspiring (although Stevie has inspired me many a time). 


I can't tell you how true those lyrics to "The Climb" are. I can't tell you how much they sound like me -- well, the first part at least. I am ALWAYS trying to move mountains (or climb them), and even though I try to remember that "journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step" stuff, I usually find myself wondering why I can't just kick the mountain aside like a wayward piece of trash. And inevitably those thoughts lead right to the "what's wrong with me?" thoughts, which are, as we all know, less than helpful. 


Today what stuck out to me, though, wasn't the line about the journey being more important than the destination, although that's usually the one that gets me. Today what got inside my head was that "it's always gonna be an uphill battle," and "sometimes I'm gonna have to lose." I think that's the part I've never accepted, never even entertained. No losing, right? Who wants to be a loser? Well, at this moment...I do! Right now I have a LOT to lose, both literally and figuratively (I'm catching the irony in the whole "losing weight" vs. "being a loser" thing as I type). 


The thing is, if you never try, you never fail, but you also never succeed -- anyone who's ever sat in a classroom plastered with inspirational posters knows that. But for years I have told myself that I would try, knowing that I might fail, but never really believing it could happen to me. And then when it did happen, when I did fail, it was like, "wait a minute -- I'm not supposed to fail! I get points for trying, right?" Somewhere along the way I seem to have lost the message. So here's the new thing (or at least today's thing): if you never lose, you never really know what winning feels like...so yeah, sometimes you're going to have to lose. 


Betcha didn't know your song was so deep, huh, Miley? 


On a different note, I plan to write the publishers of my trail guide and suggest they change the difficulty rating of today's hike from "Moderately Strenuous" to "Calves in Hell." Guess there's more than one reason it's called Mount Hunger.

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