You’re Better Than You Think You Are

“You’re better than you think you are you can do more than you think you can.”
~Ken Chlouber (Founder of the Leadville 100. An ultra distance mountain bike race and trail run.)

Is that the secret? Pushing through? Is doubt a natural process of realizing fuller aspects of yourself.
What can’t you do?
That’s an interesting question isn’t it?
How is it that we come up with these ideas of what we’re not good at. What tilts the scale towards emphatically declaring something as a talent or a deficit?  Are your declared deficits just detractions keeping you from realizing unknown potentials?
It’s interesting that many of my gifts have been hidden under long held insecurities.
I hated gym. Couldn’t catch, kick, or throw. Not surprisingly, the more I obsessed over these ideas, the more I manifested these insecurities. Gangly and awkward without full control of my limbs, I was at the bottom of the pecking order.
Sport became my nemesis.
Years later, sport became a central axis of my identity.
I pushed through my insecurities, my limits forever changing. I’ll never forget this realization. Given consistent food and water, I could ride my bike for distances that would break my body. I was capable of going beyond what I was physically capable of doing. Disregarding every signal my body gave me to stop. This was a stunningly powerful realization. A transcendental experience that transported me from the flesh. My biology was weak but my spirit was indomitable. I was no longer confined by the physical.
Distracted and uninterested in school, writing was something I learned to loath. Reading, an activity that was expected of me.  I spent more time trying to get away with not reading than reading. Ironically, I wanted to be a reader, I liked the idea. The allure was there, just not the drive.
I remember the first book I loved. That’s all it took.  A late bloomer, I was twenty. Seventeen years later with hundreds of books in my head I was richer and fuller than I’d ever been. Yet, I found myself unfulfilled and lost. With a head full of ideas and doubts, I was searching for truth. It was time to process everything I had learned.  To manage this horribly complex distillation and find a cohesive whole.
Enter: the pen.
The pen is, in fact, mightier than the sword.
I found myself unable to sleep because the words were consuming me. I was shocked! Me, writing?
At 1:00am I’d start to bargain with myself. At 2:00am I’d tell myself to go to bed. At 2:30am I’d relent. Unable to sleep, I’d continue to write until my eyes would surrender. Only a few hours later I was up again, writing. The words, an insatiable deluge. Distracted at stoplights, I was writing on gum wrappers. In between clients, writing…
I was sure it would end, after each story was told and idea processed.
That was ten years ago.
The remarkable thing is I’m just now realizing that I haven’t stopped.
My sister, a musician. She can’t not be.
My brother, a photographer. He can’t not be.
Me, still writing. How laughable!
The kid who hated to read and write.