The beauty of community is that while we all know we need to be surrounded by it, its strongest attribute is found in the individual relationship which forms as if from nowhere between two people, then builds and links together to spread like condensation on a windowpane to pattern the social fabric of a place.聽
These relationships that bond us to our friends and acquaintances throughout our lives are often, but not always, what instigates or informs much of the learning we go through as individuals. We are social beings and living as a community helps us reflect on ourselves. With this in mind, let me tell you about a new pal, Mike Murphy, and what I鈥檝e learned from him.聽
We met when I happened into his new store looking for some trail runners and we got to talking. I knew nothing of his high-performance past in a dizzying list of sports. I got some shoes, thanked him and left the store. A few weeks later I ran into him at the grocery store and he was looking rough. I commented on his exhausted appearance, which now seems oddly forward of me. He had gone on a 45km run with a friend, at night and hadn鈥檛 slept yet, he said. Hmm?聽
As luck would have it, we met again in the climbing gym where he had just started to climb. Immediately, a group of us who climb together early in the morning at the gym welcomed him to join us. To say he was keen is an understatement.聽
A year later I can tell you that he was far from just keen. He was insatiable in his desire to learn. He told me early on that running was what he took the most serious and that he didn鈥檛 want climbing to go that way 鈥� to get too serious. He wanted it to remain pure fun. Maybe that was the catalyst, that environment where pressure and expectation were low. A year into his climbing 鈥渃areer鈥� at the spritely age of 45 we have already had enough adventures, big days, and dark dawn patrol morning bouldering sessions outside in the sub-zero calm to know he is well and truly hooked as a climber for life. He has the learning curve of an 18-year-old boy, but there鈥檚 more.聽
What I鈥檝e learned from my new friend with a long history of high-performance sport, years of school, multiple careers, raising kids and very little sleeping is a lesson that cuts past simply trying your best or working hard. We tell kids in school to work hard and try their best but without a context to show them. For me, my Friend provided the perfect illustration for what we really want to foster in students, in our own kids, in our own communities, and in our world; resiliency. Being comfortable with discomfort because of its temporary nature and the great learning opportunities, which spring from it. He was, from our first meeting, unafraid of new experiences and challenges and hungrily took to learning how he could immerse himself as much as possible in them.聽
When you can meet a new pal and learn as much from him as he learns from you, even though you鈥檙e at vastly different ends of the experience spectrum in climbing, you know it鈥檚 a good friendship to foster. Welcoming hard work, leaving your bubble and not fearing mistakes transcends much more than simply learning to climb.聽
