failure – These Days

The Fear of Falling Failure

“You just need to push off and swing to the other side.”

The Just implied that it was easy. A piece of cake. What the experienced rock climbers, safely planted on the ground, were really telling me was that I need to let go. Obviously. Just let go.

It was my first time rock climbing. I felt a twinge of fear as I looked at what I was about to climb, but I silenced it. I have always been good at climbing. My family likes to tell me about how when I could barely even walk I would love to climb up the step stool we kept in the kitchen. I would climb up, fall down, dust myself off, and climb back up. I don’t remember this at all, either from being too young or from hitting my head each time I fell. My point is that I have always loved climbing things, as a child and yes still as an adult. So my excitement about rock climbing quickly squashed any nerves or fear I had.

That is until on my first run up. I managed the first half like a natural, and then I got stuck.

“You just need to push off and swing to the other side.”

Yeah okay, sure, easy peasy, I’ll get right to that.

I tried to use my unnatural long limbs to reach to the other side, so I wouldn’t actually have to let go and swing over. I had half let go, but I was also half still holding on for dear life. What sane person wouldn’t when they are that far above ground? At that height you forget that you are being supported by a rope that will catch you. At that height all knowledge that you are safe feels like a lie trying to trick you, and suddenly there is no way you are letting go.

Undeterred, I tried a second time on the second rig. Once again I was climbing quickly and easily. Look at me go.

Then I fell.

I don’t remember how it happened. I just remember one minute I was reaching, the next minute I was falling, the next minute I was caught, and then I was fine. After that falling didn’t seem so scary anymore. I took more risks, and yes fell many more times. But each time I was fine. The more I fell, the less I was afraid of falling.

My next attempt back on the other rig, I got stuck in the same place. And you know what I did without even hesitating? You guessed it, I let go and pushed myself to the other side. Not only did I survive, but I realized that letting go was ridiculously fun.

Letting go can be scary. Until it isn’t Although that is easy to say in rock climbing (relatively) it is a lot harder when you are talking about something more personal and permanent. Especially since in life it often seems like their isn’t a rope to catch us when we reach too far. So we convince ourselves that our dreams our merely meant to be pretty pictures put on our shelf of someday. Thought about and admired but not something we ever dare lived.

I have been a dreamer ever since I can remember. I use think that when I grew up and finally started living my dreams it would be like running through a field of daisies as I easily glided into happily ever after. Not even a little bit. It is more like being stuck 50 feet in the air the first time I decide to rock climb.

Terrifying.

Life is a beautiful story of falling and picking ourselves up again. Those who do great things are not the ones who never failed, but the ones who refuse to let their failure stop them. Sometimes the best thing we can do for ourselves is to just let go. To fall so we can catch ourselves, so we can once again believe in ourselves. So that the next time we find ourselves having to swing to the other side, we won’t hesitate, we won’t let our fear hold us, we will just swing, and for one split second feel free from our fear.

November 9, 2015 by lorirensink Categories: InspirationTags: Blogging, Dreams, failure, falling, fear, Inspiration, life, memoir, rock climbing 12 Comments

A Nice Box of Dreams

I am the type of person who is guided by my intuition. I trust it. I listen to it. I snuggle up close to it and let it make my decisions for me. I see a fact and needs something more. I need a sign – a feeling. A need my gut to jump up and say, “Yes, that is it. That one right there. That is right.”

I have been bouncing back and forth on law school for so many months now that even I find it annoying. I am going to go, I am not going to go, I am going to throw my arms up in the air and admit I have no idea what I want. ~~My intuition hasn’t been that helpful on this one.~~ I have been too scared to really listen what my intuition was telling me.

Dreams are elusive. By that I mean that our dreams are hard to define. It is hard to take your dream and put it in a nice little box. That would make things easier wouldn’t it? Just open your nice little box and look through your dreams like old photographs.

Instead we are left chasing the elusive. We chase the feeling that there is something better out there, in we could only touch it. The driving whisper that tells us we can be more tomorrow if we just have the courage to try. If we could only define it. If we could only put it in a nice little box.

Some days I want to buy horses and an apple orchard, other days I want to storm congress. Most days I am left feeling like I have no idea what I want.

So I tried a different approach. I didn’t ask myself if I wanted to go to law school. I asked myself if I would feel like I gave up my dream if I didn’t go to school. In 10 or 20 years when I looked back on my life, would I regret never going to law school?

My answer shocked me. I didn’t think that I might regret it, or that there was maybe a chance I would regret it. My intuition was screaming at me that I would absolutely regret it. I think it has been screaming at me for a while now, I just didn’t have the courage to listen. The signs have been there for a while, I just have been fighting them because I am stubborn.

It will not always be easy, in fact I expect it will be very hard. It will not always be everything I dreamed, in fact it will rarely be close. But I have been telling people I wanted to be a lawyer since I was 13. I at least owe it to myself to give it my best shot, come hell or high water.

Sometimes the beauty is in the attempt.

The bravery we had when we took that first step, the grace we had the first time we failed, and the guts we had to pick ourselves back up and try again. There is so much to be lived in the messiness of life, because those are the moments that define who we are. That is why it is important to enjoy the moments that take our breath away; the moments that make our heart beat a little faster.

Can you feel it? The beating of your heart, the thrumming of your veins? Can feel the way your heart aches after it has been broken? What about the fear you feel when you finally find something worth fighting for?

Embrace that life and this moment are incredible gifts, no matter what you may be going through. Embrace that this moment is shaping the rest of your life.

Embrace that you will fail and that life won’t be what you expected it to, but don’t let that stop you from trying.

Embrace the uncertainty, embrace the fear, and embrace the restless stirring of your heart that pulls you to your feet to chase your dreams. Sometimes the beauty is in the attempt.

It doesn’t interest me what you do for a living. I want to know what you ache for – and if you dare to dream of meeting your heart’s longing. It doesn’t interest me how old you are. I want to know if you will risk looking like a fool – for love – for your dreams – for the adventure of being alive. -Oriah Mountain Dreame

Photo Credit: Christina Re

**** Thanks for stopping by and reading my blog. Please feel free to leave you comment in the comment section. Tell me about your dreams, I would love to hear them!

August 27, 2015 by lorirensink Categories: DreamsTags: Dreaming, Dreams, failure, goals, Inspiration, law, life, living, school 25 Comments

Sweet Summer Memories

As the weather gets nicer, dreams of summer begin. I start having dreams of lakes, boats, shorts, and the sun making my skin darker and my hair blonder. There is some magical quality contained in the hope of those six letters. SUMMER. It sounds restful and awaiting adventure at the same time.

Ah yes, sweet blissful summer how we pin for your freedom and warmth.

There was a time when summer meant packing my bags and heading to my second home. No it wasn’t a glamorous summer vacation home, it was a small cabin at a summer camp. I spent the most defining and memorable moments of my life there. So naturally whenever the hope of summer draws near I find myself thinking back to the summers I spent there.

Those summers were marked by a sense of freedom and carefree whimsy as I ran barefoot through the grass and snuck to the lake late at night. It was place where my soul felt at rest; the place where my soul felt at home. I could not imagine spending my summers anywhere else.

It is hard to explain in words how a place can mean so much to me. Camp is a special place but it is just that, a place. It is just land with poorly grown grass, a wasp infested storage facility, wooden cabins that are falling apart, trails overrun by bugs, and a lake so dirty you can’t see your hand when its six inches under water.

What makes the place so special to me is the memories that are so deeply ingrained in that place that they become inseparable.

The poorly grown grass is where I spent many hours playing rec games, getting tackled in the cone game and tackling others. The wasp infested storage facility is where I spent most of my second summer on staff painting a mural with all the campers. The wooden cabins that are falling apart is where I spent many summers counseling, and where I first learned to be comfortable in my own skin. The bug infested trails is where I drove the gator as fast as it would go as the wind whipped my hair around. The gross lake is where I spent every afternoon being the queen of dunking children, and trying to not get dunked by the hordes of angry children determined to get their revenge. The gross lake is also where I lost my favorite necklace and almost lost a sinking jet ski.

The horrible things become the beautiful things when we take them into our life and make them our own.

The director of the camp, Jerry, remains to this day one of my favorite people. I hope everyone has the chance to have a person like Jerry in your life. He is an intelligent, wise, and hard working man, with a quick wit and a childlike whimsy that made him the perfect person to be director a camp. He taught me a lot about what it meant to live a life with love and without fear. I have a lot of favorite Jerry quotes, but one of his most used one is, “Safety is overrated, but that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be careful.” Jerry was also a big believer in the impact that telling stories about our life would have for the people who listened to them.

I have many stories I could share from my summers at camp. Stories about midnight skunk hunts and sinking jet skis. Stories about catfish in toilets and giant rats in our staff lounge. Stories about learning to love and learning to be loved. As I said, my summers there were some of the most memorable and defining moments of my life, and I wouldn’t trade them for anything. But for right now I want to share with you the story of the time I learned to sail.

One evening towards the beginning of my first year on staff, Jerry offered to teach us how to sailboat. I, in typical Lori fashion, quickly sprung on the opportunity and was undeterred by the fact that I was the only girl staffer who wanted to learn.

This was not the day that I learned how to sail. I wish it were, but then I wouldn’t have a story to tell.

The day I learned how to sail was terrifying. This is was about our reaction . . .

Just kidding that is actually from an improv skit we did, but I am sure that is about how we all felt.

Not long after we had the sailboat masked, a storm began to roll through. Jerry being Jerry was not going to let this stop him. It had a relentless pursuit of life that I always admired. Needless to say, Jerry ended up teaching us how to sail in 40 plus mph winds. 40 mph winds really doesn’t seem out of the ordinary for South Dakota, but it was the equivalent of driving 75 mph on the interstate the first time your hands were behind the wheel of a car. Like I said, terrifying. But also ridiculously fun.

For those of you who have never sailed before, the steering is introverted it. You have to turn the opposite way that feel natural. If you turned the wrong way into the wind, you could expect to be dumped into the water, and surface to find an upside down sailboat. This of course was not a frightening notion for someone who was just learning how to sail. Not at all. Although sometimes the best times in life are the ones when we are absolutely terrified and clueless.

Once I got the hang of things, I dared to go a little faster. Then I accidentally turned just a tiny bit too far into the wind and was abruptly yanked off of the sailboat by the power of the sails. One minute I was sailing along, and the next I was flying into the water. It was a good thing that Jerry was right there beside me (even if he was laughing), otherwise the sailboat would have surely tipped and I would have been a sitting duck. I could have quit right then. I could have decided that the sailing life was not for me and asked Jerry take me back to the safety of shore. But I didn’t. I have never been one for quitting. Jerry pulled me back into the sailboat and I handed me the ropes. I took the ropes and tried again. I didn’t let the fear of failing again stop me. I just grabbed the ropes and learned to sail.

We are often taught the mindset that failures define us. I don’t agree with that. What defines us is not the times we tried and failure, but rather what we did when we failed. Failure shows us what we are made of, it shows our grit. Do not define yourself by the moments that you splash in the water arms flailing, but rather by the moments when you pull yourself out of the water, grab the ropes, and try again.