Sour Apples

"How long?" Sohrab asked.

"I don't know. A while."

Sohrab shrugged and smiled, wider this time. "I don't mind. I can wait. It's like sour apples."

"Sour apples?"

"One time, when I was really little, I climbed a tree and ate these green, sour apples. My stomach swelled and became hard like a drum, it hurt a lot. Mother said that if I'd just waited for the apples to ripen, I wouldn't have become sick. So now, whenever I really want something, I try to remember what she said about the apples."

This is an extract from Khaled Hosseini's novel "The Kite Runner."

It sums up perfectly in my view, something that I have repeatedly seen my skiing clients do to themselves, and which not only holds back their development toward mastery of their sport, but also renders them unhappy.

In one of her songs, Carly Simon wrote "Anticipation, it's making me late, it's keeping me waiting." While ours, since World War II, has been the most fortunate generation in the history of mankind in many ways, there is one way in which perhaps we've been a little less lucky.

We have never had to do without anything; just about everything has been possible. I think it's just possible that we have somehow come to expect everything, and everything now. Which was the rock group that sang "I want it all, and I want it now!" Queen? Can't remember, but it sums up quite a lot I think, and it's a recipe for unhappiness.

I know of no shortcuts to anywhere worthwhile. If you wish find mastery of skiing, you will have to pay your dues, do the work, and be both patient and persistent. That, at any rate, has been my own experience, and so far I haven't come across anyone else who just raced away to success in a short time.

If you are impatient, either to get what you want, or perhaps with yourself, you will find yourself employing the kind of self talk that will make you unhappy and lead you further away from your goal, not toward it. You'll find yourself saying (perhaps only internally, and maybe that's worse) things like - "I ought to be better than this by now." [Why should you?]."I feel such a fool because I can't do ....." [What's has foolishness got to do with anything? You are where you are that's all]

There is nothing else; there is only what we do, and what we don't do, and the consequences thereof.

So, why am I saying this - well, I happen to believe, through many years of observing aspirational skiers, that knowing how to learn is the key piece of knowledge we need, and this issue of patient abstraction, while still working hard at our tasks, is essential.

Bob Valentine Trueman.