Abacus Mountain Guides
  • Home
  • Adventures
    • Ben Nevis >
      • Ben Nevis Winter Ascent
      • Ben Nevis Mountain Track
      • Coire Leis
      • CMD Arete
      • Ledge Route
      • Tower Ridge
      • Events and Challenges
    • Provident Sailing & Hill Walking
    • Summer Guiding >
      • Ring of Steall
      • Glen Coe Walks
      • Curved Ridge
      • Aonach Eagach
      • Rock Climbing
      • Sea Stack Odyssey
      • Private Guiding
    • Skye and the Cuillin Ridge >
      • Cuillin Ridge Traverse
      • Cuillin Munro Bagging
      • Inaccessible Pinnacle
    • Winter Guiding >
      • Winter Walking >
        • Winter Skills Courses
        • Guided Winter Walking
      • Winter Climbing >
        • Intro to Winter Climbing
        • Classic Winter Mountaineering
        • Winter Climbing Progression
        • Classic Winter Climbing
        • Guided Winter Climbing
        • Performance Winter Climbing Workshop
      • Skiing >
        • Intro to Ski Touring
        • Scottish Steep Skiing
        • Ropework for Skiers
      • Avalanche Awareness
      • Women's Winter Festival
      • Fort William Mountain Festival Workshops
      • Winter Resources
    • Mountain Leader Courses
  • Blog
  • Contact
  • About
  • Sustainability
  • Booking
  • Partners
  • Covid-19

Fear of missing out.

10/5/2022

0 Comments

 
Picture
In some ways I feel like I should apologise for our social media feeds. I put up nice pictures of all the adventures I experience and describe them in detail, and you might feel like you have missed out on something. It is a common theme in the outdoor community and is enhanced by the ephemeral nature of what we seek. We quite like, secretly or openly, to get one up on our friends. Knowing that we have got to a climb in perfect condition, when most other people have not, is quite satisfying.

If this FOMO (fear of missing out) generates the drive to get out and have your own adventures I’m delighted. Going climbing and walking and biking (and even kayaking, although that’s not one I enjoy as much) is brilliant in so many ways. I hope to encourage people to get out and engage with our beautiful landscape. The benefits of exercise and challenge in nature to our physical, mental and spiritual wellbeing are profound. And it’s a lot of fun too!
Picture
One-upmanship can be a fun game but let’s not let it get out of hand. What I don’t want to encourage is a kind of outdoor consumerism. If we start to get the idea that climbing a certain route makes you better than someone else we will start to follow the wrong path.
​
I have fallen into this trap before myself. Many years ago, my friend Jonny and I enjoyed soloing big ice climbs on Ben Nevis. We compared notes on climbing Point Five Gully, Zero Gully, Hadrian’s Wall Direct, all solo. It started to get competitive and we started to think about whether we could go for a grade VI and who would do it first. So I found myself standing underneath Mega Route X with every intention of climbing it but with a slightly unsettled feeling inside. The climb was in great shape and the weather was good but something wasn’t quite right.
Picture
So, I went home, without climbing the route, and I’m very happy with this decision. It became clear to me that the main reason for climbing that route was to get one up on Jonny. That’s no reason to do such a serious thing as climb vertical ice solo.
​
A couple of weeks later I went back up with my wife Louise and my friend Tony. We were deciding what to do when I suggested I could climb Mega Route X before doing something else. This time it felt so good to climb the route, even with Louise watching me at the bottom of the coire. We went off and did another climb together afterwards and had a lovely day. We did the climbs we wanted to do for us and for no other reason.
Picture
We praise achievement and we are right to do so. When Dave MacLeod completes another of the world’s hardest climbs we all celebrate his success. When we first climbed Everest the whole nation celebrated. Now, some people climb Everest to be able to say that they have climbed Everest thinking that this status gives them something other people don’t have. We might complete the Munro’s, or the Cuillin Traverse or climb Orion Direct and feel like this makes us better than others. This is not universal, it is only a few people but it is not healthy.
​
We should not collect outdoor objectives like badges we can wear on our sleeves. We should not do things so that we can say we have done them with the intention of making our audience feel small. 
Picture
The challenge is ours and ours alone. It is so hard to do but we should not measure ourselves up with other people. We should push ourselves to new things, new places and new adventures for the experience it gives us. Let’s share our experiences to encourage others to have their own adventures but the reward is entirely personal. It’s about the struggle, the escape from everyday life, the sense of perspective, the focus on what actually matters right here, right now. It’s not actually about what you do at all.

Doing great things in the outdoors does not make us better than anyone else but it might just make us better people.
​
So I hope we inspire action and not envy, that people get out and have adventures of their own instead of feeling that they are missing out. Don’t read it and think about what I have been up to. Read it and think about what you can get up to.
Picture
0 Comments

Your comment will be posted after it is approved.


Leave a Reply.

    Author

    Mike Pescod
    mountain guide.

    Self reliance is a fundamental principle of mountaineering. By participating we accept this and take responsibility for the decisions we make. These blog posts and conditions reports are intended to help you make good decisions. They do not remove the need for you to make your own judgements when out in the hills.

    Archives

    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015

    Picture

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed


Picture
Jottnar
info@abacusmountainguides.com
+44 (0) 1397 703563
  • Home
  • Adventures
    • Ben Nevis >
      • Ben Nevis Winter Ascent
      • Ben Nevis Mountain Track
      • Coire Leis
      • CMD Arete
      • Ledge Route
      • Tower Ridge
      • Events and Challenges
    • Provident Sailing & Hill Walking
    • Summer Guiding >
      • Ring of Steall
      • Glen Coe Walks
      • Curved Ridge
      • Aonach Eagach
      • Rock Climbing
      • Sea Stack Odyssey
      • Private Guiding
    • Skye and the Cuillin Ridge >
      • Cuillin Ridge Traverse
      • Cuillin Munro Bagging
      • Inaccessible Pinnacle
    • Winter Guiding >
      • Winter Walking >
        • Winter Skills Courses
        • Guided Winter Walking
      • Winter Climbing >
        • Intro to Winter Climbing
        • Classic Winter Mountaineering
        • Winter Climbing Progression
        • Classic Winter Climbing
        • Guided Winter Climbing
        • Performance Winter Climbing Workshop
      • Skiing >
        • Intro to Ski Touring
        • Scottish Steep Skiing
        • Ropework for Skiers
      • Avalanche Awareness
      • Women's Winter Festival
      • Fort William Mountain Festival Workshops
      • Winter Resources
    • Mountain Leader Courses
  • Blog
  • Contact
  • About
  • Sustainability
  • Booking
  • Partners
  • Covid-19