I fu🧨❄️d up.
"Behold my field of fucks - for it is barren". William Shakespeare, when he just couldn't give a fuck anymore. Unfortunately, I give all of the fucks. This is a post about that.
There are many ways in which I have fucked up in life. As a ski patroller, as a friend, as a girlfriend, as a daughter, sister, IKEA furniture assembler, human.
To kick off the summer in style, I figured I’ll let you know a few ski patrol related highlights of fuck uppery over the years, and some respective learnings (if any). Maybe this will break the conversational ice, and be a reminder to only compare yourself to who you were yesterday. I know I have to, for comparison really is the thief of joy.
The highlight reel
These are in no particular order or timeline:
I dropped a primed, albeit not lit, explosives charge right below myself and my colleague on the blasting ropeway stand, because I forgot to hold onto the spring loaded lever that secures it for travel. Luckily the loads are impact proof, but for a second there, I thought: “This is it.”
I believed an overly dramatic teenager when he claimed both his wrists were “broken”, despite my better knowledge. Got him transported by helicopter unnecessarily. Nobody was amused. I just didn’t have it in me to argue with a teenager.
I flipped a skidoo on a run, splattering it’s contents everywhere, breaking the windshield and bending the frame out of shape, gas spreading everywhere.
I never told a chauvinistic, short tempered colleague to just lay off, when he blindsided me with an outburst of anger about something he believed I had supposedly said. Instead, I literally cowered and went out of my way to avoid him the rest of the season.
I told people more than once that “Ah - I’m sure it ain’t broken” when it was, indeed, broken, even though I have been trained extensively on why we never diagnose a patient.
I had to leave someone in a panic in a foggy white-out, because I couldn’t get the skidoo to grip to a complete stop. (I came back for them.)
I forgot to hook myself into the safety line whilst descending a 45m tall lift pylon.
I have put slope signs up facing the wrong way and spread to the wrong distances, so I had to reset the entire marking system, by myself.
I overestimated a kids strength and encouraged them to carry on skiing in a snowplough (pizza), when they lost it and straight-lined into a tree. (They’re fine, but my heart stopped for a minute).
I rushed to a scene, overtook someone on the edge of the piste and got the Akja (sled) stuck in a ditch, which turned out to be a little creek. It flooded the sled and I had to get someone else to do the call, whilst sorting out the little Aquarium I had just created.
I forgot to take pictures of the scene of a hit and run collision to give to police, making the insurance process even more difficult for the patient.
I never know the opening times of town services and just make them up, to get people off my back. The same goes for weather forecasts. Even though I watch the weather religiously and know it intimately, I pretend and say “I haven’t checked yet” just because I don’t want to get roped into the conversation.
(Incomplete) learnings
If you have to do something sketchy, do it fast.
Don’t be afraid to ask for help or tell your bosses/company their training culture is lacking or even - *gasp* - appalling. No-one will thank you for staying quiet after you’ve hurt yourself or others.
HALT before making life changing decisions. If you’re hungry, angry, lonely, tired - try and fix that first if you can.
If you’re forced to make a decision anyway, act as educated as you are intelligent. Don’t pretend to know something you don’t, and don’t pretend to not know something you do.Do not let others stress you out on their timeline. Slow is smooth and smooth is fast.
Never, ever, tell a German with a plan that the weather may not allow for it. Just...duck and pray.
Know thyself
I’ve had imposter syndrome and too-cool-for-school syndrome, been late, hungover, hostile, a push-over, ill prepared, overly anxious, reckless, and everything in between.
When it comes to inspirational reverse engineering of why our imperfections are beautiful I like to use the imagery of rope or cable splicing as a metaphor:
You see, when a cable needs to be connected to form a full loop, or when there’s a broken section, it is done by “splicing” the two loose ends. The strands of a rope are woven back into themselves to create a strong, secure, seamless connection without using knots, to make a full loop. The two loose ends become fully integrated.
To do this you need to know how the cable is actually constructed and take apart its individual strands in order to put it back together. Mistakes and broken bits of yourself won’t haunt you, if you integrate them into the fabric of yourself. In order to learn from them, you must stay curious and generous towards these parts instead of exiling them into oblivion, only for them to rage against your ignorance.
This is what it means to know thyself. This is what Carl Jung called “shadow work”, Tsultrim Allione calls “befriending the monster”, and Britney Spears breath-sings about in “Oops - I did it again.”
If you deeply know yourself, and how to talk to all your parts, believing in yourself becomes a secondary effect, not a prerequisiste to success.
And if you fuck up as much as I do, the “just believe in yourself” credo simply won’t suffice. But more on that next time.
Godspeed my friends.
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I really like this piece.
You just made all my countless f***-ups feel sooo good 🥳