San Francisco Voice

It’s okay to cut your losses and try again later.

I know that I can climb this one particular path at Mission Cliffs because it’s the first one that I ever beat and I’ve done it several times since.  But today when I tried to do it, I just couldn’t get to the top of it.  In fact, I couldn’t get to the top of anything that I climbed today.  And finally, I realized that there was no point in forcing myself to do something that wasn’t working for me.

Sure, I could berate myself and beat myself over the head in frustration because I wasn’t able to accomplish what I’d set out to accomplish this morning.  But the reality of climbing is that sometimes you’re just too tired or too sore or too “not there” enough to be able to do it.  And it’s okay – I’ll go to the gym again tomorrow and I’ll be in a better place and I’ll beat the indoor mountain instead of letting it beat me.

And you know, it’s the same way with love sometimes.  You can force yourself to go on dates because you think you need to meet someone, but you can’t make them go well.  You can’t make yourself fall in love or make yourself be more available to someone than you’re ready to be.  And instead of beating yourself up for your supposed failures, it’s okay to just step back, look at the wall of love and think to yourself, “you know what, I’ll climb you later”.

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