The Push: A Climber's Search for the Path

by Tommy Caldwell

After all this time, I finally realize that these years of training, rehearsing, memorizing—they’re as much, or maybe more, about building belief as they are about getting stronger.

mix of awe and audacity.

“Maybe we can view risk like we would a drug, beneficial to the organism in the proper dose,” he once wrote. “Too much or too little may be harmful.”

Through the struggle and bone-pulsing exhaustion a profound clarity had emerged, as if I had tapped into a place inside too often forgotten, where you are stripped bare and granted a glimpse into who you truly are. A place where you could look at the impossible and make it real. I’d never been so alive.

I wanted to show Fitz how to love and respect others. I believe human relationships can and should follow the mind-set of adventure, defined not by climbing but by its greater meaning: embracing the unknown. In remaining open to others, you gain knowledge, and your perspective of life and of the world expands.

Flow, that state of optimal experience in which one feels fully engaged, is one of the most magical experiences a person can have.

when it gets hard is when we grow.