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so here’s what skateboarding has revealed to me already within the last four or five days: the anticipation of failure keeps me from doing many things in my life. the possibility of failing is scarier than the actual fall itself.
I’ve only fallen once because I skate safe to avoid hurting myself. but chances are by half way attempting a trick I’m more likely to hurt myself bc my form is all off.
If I can’t get myself to try and worry about dealing with a fall AFTER it happens as opposed to anticipating it and trying to compensate ahead of time, I’ll never learn how to actually land the gotdamn trick.
if you know me then you know there’s a metaphor coming
cuz I don’t just stop myself from doing tricks on my skateboard out of fear. I stop myself from attending social events, applying for certain jobs, picking up new skills and so on and so forth for THE SAME REASON
and whenever I do try something I do everything I can AHEAD OF TIME to minimize failure but really it just means setting myself up TO fail because instead of going in full force and seeing where it takes me, I’m prepared for what will happen if it doesn’t work out
Needless to say, I will be forcing my frustrated ass to keep skating and WORKING AT IT because practice is also not something I’m used to
Growing up I was so naturally good at certain things, the concept of having to spend days weeks months or years at any one thing to get good at it is beyond me. I’m a fast learner. But skateboarding doesn’t work that way.
It takes time and effort and the ability to do something without considering the possible ramifications of trying something new.
And while considering what might happen when you do something can be a healthy way of evaluating your place in any situation, allowing those considerations to stop you from giving it your all is harmful to the pursuit of success by assuming that you will fail
even though there’s no way of knowing until you actually give it a fair shot.
anyways thank you for coming to my ted talk. right now I want to break my board in half out of frustration but I will instead settle for this thread of considerations for what skateboarding means in the grand scheme of my life at 23 years old.
