Everything costs something everyone pays

Crested Butte is for spectators Chamonix is for participants.

I don't actually care what I climb, only how it affects me. Which means the summit doesn't matter as much as the emotional process.

Sometimes you must sacrifice yourself on the altar of effort to be reminded of what and who you could become if you applied yourself.

Inconsistency, incompetence, and lies are all cut short by the ground. It will stop you if you can't stop yourself.

I scavenged for sensation, sought myself in the rewards of being out there, across the Border.

You become what you do. How and what you become depends on environmental influence so you become who you hang around. Raise the standard your peers must meet and you'll raise your expectations of yourself. If your environment is not making you better, change it.

...and while ambition sleeps inside of me I content myself with memories of glitter and despair.

Modern man is conditioned to expect instant gratification, but any success or triumph realized quickly, with only marginal effort, is necessarily shallow. Meaningful achievement takes time, hard work, persistence, patience, proper intent and self-awareness. The path to success is punctuated by failure, consolidation, and renewed effort.

So go ahead, break stuff. Break yourself on the once-hard edges of yourself. And recycle the debris into the foundation of your future.

Some of us wake up. Others roll over.

It doesn't have to be fun to be fun.