The Ebb And The Flow

I've often talked about motivation and the constant changes it seems to take on.  The past few years at the lake have been as perfect an example as could be.  It's been incredibly fun to watch the area as it grows and goes through the initial pains of any place that expands at a rapid pace.

As for this season itself, it's been remarkably positive and I started out the year with as much motivation to find new problems and areas than I have in a long time.  A nice byproduct of that was seeing guys like Ian turn the Smooth Operator area into a true destination with multiple high quality lines.  Big Red is an absolutely stunning line and many of the other problems over there are of very high quality as well.

I'll be the first to admit I've been as hard on Ian as anyone else when it comes to "variations".  Its made me extremely happy to watch him from the outside as he developed this particular area because a good majority of the lines were true, independent lines of good quality.  Almost singlehandedly he turned that area from one with 2-3 problems and 2 extremely difficult projects into a diverse, concentrated destination that everyone has enjoyed with an easy approach.

Sometimes it just takes someone with an non-discriminating eye to turn a place that was overlooked into an area of quality.  Peter, Chris, Sarah, Tony, Katie and myself(among many others I'm sure) all walked through the area saying the same thing.

"Couple things, but nothing amazing."

Turns out we were wrong.

On a more personal note, while the year started out great I've had a bit of a rough run since and my motivation has waned a good amount.  As of right now I've had one month this year without an injury of some sort and I'm taking some more time off at the moment in the hopes of healing up a bum finger.

What's been amazing to me though is that I'm not frustrated at all.  I'm actually enjoying some time off.  Its allowed me to focus on work a little more and I'm hoping it'll let my body heal a little bit.

The timing couldn't have been any better with recent temps consistently hitting the 100's and with next weeks "cold front" bringing us highs in the low 90's.  Gonna be chilly.  Might have to put a sweater on.

Motivation is a fickle beast that I wrestle with often.  Thankfully this time around I hit my motivation low as things aligned for me otherwise.  This feels very different from last summer when I was forced to the sidelines.  I could very well climb through the finger injury and it might go away at some point but being able to make that decision on my own has made the biggest difference to my mindset.

Instead of sweating my ass off and climbing poorly, I get to play badminton and drink.  I think I'm gonna go pro.