The Backstory
When confronted with a stressor some people fight, others flight, me?
I freeze.
I’m a big dude, not a BIG dude, but big enough. I just have a bit too much fat. This is due to my personal life and the medications I am taking. Nevertheless, I decided every day I would go for a walk in nature for at least 30 minutes, to build up an exercise habit. I never thought twice about where I walked until I was faced with a specimen of nature.
I’m Australian. I live in Australia. You sorta forget that when you’re not reminded of it. Only to realize when you see a massive spider or, a snake. In classical Australian fashion.
The Day
One day it’s about 4:30 in the afternoon, on a warmer day, between winter and spring. I’m walking along this trail that winds around the back of town following a creek. I look up from my feet to acknowledge someone walking in the opposite direction to me.
It’s then when I hear a rustle off to my left between the path and the creek. I looked down and saw some shrubbery, fallen leaves, and a large log at a 45-degree angle to the path. At this point I had stopped moving I’m not sure why, but it was then when I noticed it.
The log moved.
As my brain caught on to what my eyes were experiencing I now knew what I was looking at. It’s a HUGE red-bellied black snake. This monster is twice the thickness of my arm and about 12-14 feet in length.
I don’t think it noticed me, if it did it didn’t seem phased by my presence. Nevertheless, I am **itting. My. Pants. I am frozen, I just watch this snake in silence as to my terror, it slithers itself into the base of a tiny shrub that I thought impossible for a beast that size to fit into.
Once the snake went out of sight I waited a good 3-4 minutes, in silence, before advancing on my walk.
As you can imagine I have never been so transfixed on the ground in my entire life, and I don’t think I ever will. For the remaining 20 minutes of my walk, I was so deeply concentrated on the space around my feet and the grass and shrubbery off to my left and right, all the way back to my car, where I drove the 10 minutes back to my house in terrified silence.
What I learned about Failure
The next day it was a real struggle to get motivated enough to risk seeing the snake again, obviously, but I did end up going on that same walk for about a month afterward, not long after this incident the local council mowed the grass about a foot from the left and the right of the trail, which I was extremely thankful for.
It was only recently that I reflected on my experience and realized my relationship with failure is extremely similar to how I reacted to the snake.
When faced with failure (the snake) I freeze. I become so transfixed by the threat of failure that I become paralyzed, however, after some time I am able to bounce back and complete my task despite the fear created by the failure.
I nearly let the failure/ the snake stop me from going walking which is something I really enjoy but I am thrilled that I am able to keep doing the thing I love despite the threat of being confronted.
This goliath of a snake had taught me 2 things;
- Failure is only classified as a failure if you allow it to get to you.
- Failure is always going to be there, whether it’s rejection, criticism or just being incorrect, the threat of the negative should not be taken as a physical manifestation of the inevitable but rather a sign that you’re doing something worth pursuing
So, I’m thankful that I had this experience as I learned something very valuable about life and about myself.
If I have inspired you to go for a walk (which I would be surprised if I have) check out this post about the benefits I have gotten from walking every day;
Thanks for Reading have a great day 🙂
Leave a Reply