The Balance

Writing your memoirs — or just a bundle of stories about yourself — gets tough the moment you dig below the surface. I keep looking at my younger self and thinking: you weren’t very nice. You were a bit of a bastard.

I hope I’m not quite so bad now. But I’m embarrassed by how narrow my world was. It was just me and the mountains. Anything that stood between me and that obsession was in the way.

This isn’t unusual. Read enough about elite athletes and you see the same trait: ruthless, obsessive, hard to live with. It’s difficult to sustain anything close to a normal relationship when your primary relationship is with an objective. Imagine being married to someone whose real love is Everest.

I love my kids, but I don’t think I was a good dad. I love my mum, but I wasn’t a good son. I loved my wife — and I know I was a poor husband.

It’s easy to chase the big objectives and dress it up as courage. Better to try and fail than never try. Better to risk death than be ruled by fear. That’s the story we tell. And people who don’t do stupid things — who are steady sons, fathers, partners — can sometimes look at that life and feel they missed out.

But when you’re older, sitting on the sofa with your kids either side of you, or next to your partner, a different set of regrets appears. For every summit there are other losses. Quieter ones. The kind that don’t make it into films.

I used to tell myself it was all about balance. Now I think that was an illusion.

If you’re going to write honestly about your life, you can’t hide behind clichés. You have to admit where you were selfish. Where you failed. It’s the only way the story means anything. Maybe it’s the only way to earn some understanding — even forgiveness.

“I think I was a crap dad when you were little,” I said to my son the other day in the car.

He just laughed.