we choose this: from success to significance

I was't born into horses, I didn't grow up with them. Horses weren't simply a natural part of life during my childhood. Instead I grew up in Baltimore City in a decidedly non horsey family.

But I *was* born with a distinct, urgent need. A fierce resolve that manifested, like so many other little girls, as an obsession with all things horses. My appetite for anything and everything horses was insatiable: the big book of breeds, glossy stickers, Saddle Club books, model horses (I was a Grand Champions girl haha), and, of course, literally any chance to see a real horse in the flesh.

  #dreamscometrue

Eventually, my parents agreed to let me start taking riding lessons. And this whole.... thing grew uncontrollably from there.

Throughout each phase of my life, I've had to reaffirm this choice, this dedication to horses, again and again. In high school, that meant opting to spend every possible moment at the barn -- helping out with even the most boring, dirty, labor intensive chores.

pc Austen Gage

Once in college, again the choice was mine to pursue opportunities in a new and unfamiliar town. To join the equestrian team and take on a job managing the lesson barn at my new farm.

Same story after graduating college. Finding my place in the horse world as a horseless but passionate adult amateur was much more difficult than I expected, and took a few false starts to gain traction. But I was persistent. Then Isabel more or less fell into my lap, a paradigm shift that opened the door to brand new choices and opportunities.

    ....

Most of you already know how that turned out. I grabbed hold with both hands, leaping at the chance to close in on all those distant dreams. I went all in, and in turn Isabel gave me more than I ever could have hoped for during our lease period. All those experiences were what finally led me to my first ever personally owned horse: Charlie.

My horsey habit today is the product of all those choices over the years, the product of my own uniquely personal journey and experience with horses. I imagine this is true for everyone, and that everyone's journey, experiences, and choices will look a little different.

pc Austen Gage

If you had asked that little girl who loved her stickers and begged to pet the noses of any ponies in fields along the side of the road.... If you had asked her "Why?"... Honestly she probably wouldn't have been able to tell you. But it definitely didn't have anything to do with our adult preconceptions about "success." It wasn't about winning or blue ribbons, or even the more nebulous ideas of glory or victory or redemption.

It had to be something more innate than that. Some deeper driving force. Something more closely related to the personal significance of even those earliest small, simple horsey experiences.

pc Austen Gage

As an adult, that significance and meaning feels increasingly conflated with more external pressures. It feels like now there are competing priorities -- the perceived needs to justify the expense, to rationalize this crazy habit, or to somehow prove ourselves.

And these pressures start redefining how we think about "success" with horses, such that the definition creeps further away from what drove us to these animals in the first place.

  pc #needsmoarstickyspray

That sense of personal significance is so vague, so hard to describe, right? Even today I couldn't really verbalize in a satisfying way WHY horses, ya know? It's much easier to frame the idea of success or goals in more broadly accepted terms. Like conforming to the norm of measuring progress by the "level" of our riding, for instance.

But.... There's real problems with this, right? When our focus shifts away from personal fulfillment and significance, and toward those external measuring sticks, we open ourselves up to burnout, discouragement, or worse. Any sense of external validation is fleeting anyway. There's always some next hoop, some other more distant goal post, and nobody is ever going to care as much as we do about our own outcomes.

pc Austen Gage

So.... That's not really good enough, ya know? My horsey lifestyle has nothing to do with some predefined rubric that says whether we've "made it" or not. That's not what drove me to horses as a little girl, and it's not what sustains me now. Does that make sense?

Honestly, from where I stand, I've come to believe that there are very few wrong ways to enjoy horses. Assuming you're healthy, safe, and having fun.... Well, there's really no need to explain why. Just have at it, right? It hardly matters what you do with horses or how you do it if those simple boxes are checked off the list, IMO. We don't have to agree on tactics or methods or whatever when we all share this same intent.

pc Amy Flemming Waters

Realistically, what are horses even doing in 2019? It's easy to become so consumed by our own little performance / sport horse universe that we forget about the rest of the horses out there... But they're still there haha. And not just in other areas of sport, either.

Consider every other avenue in which horses work for a living: the countless lesson ponies and schoolies around the world; the therapeutic riding horses; all those anonymous strings of trail horses on beaches, at the Grand Canyon, and everywhere in between; the NYC carriage horses; Baltimore's arabbers; Amish plow horses; working ranch horses; etc etc etc.

pc Amy Flemming Waters

Most of those horses lead lives far, far different from the average adult amateur-owned horse. Although even within the world of privately owned horses, there's still extreme diversity. The pasture pets, half-lame trail horses still getting ridden, kids' ponies, horses in rigorous professional training programs, and horses owned by the imperfect, averagely skilled rider.

There are also extreme variances in horse lifestyles around the world completely independent of the horse's job title. Just consider the vast differences between East and West Coast horse keeping.

pc Amy Flemming Waters

Again tho, from where I stand, I don't really see very many "wrong" ways to enjoy horses in our lives provided everyone is healthy, safe, and having fun.

Per force of our own unique journeys to horses, the variances in backgrounds, resources, interests, locations, goals, skills, etc etc etc, everyone's horsey life will look a little different. We've all gotten to wherever we are because of our sets of choices and circumstances. We all have little confirmation or selection biases, rooted in our own histories and experiences.

     pc #fuckyea4eva

But the great thing about these animals is that one size does not fit all. There's room for everyone.

At this particular point of my riding life, I identify as an eventer. I have ambitions and goals that align with the various levels of the sport, the various hoops that must be jumped through from one to the next. There are specific things I would like to achieve, and a major component of the joy I derive from riding revolves around working progressively toward those goals.

      pc #theactualhandsomest

But none of that is the "why" of my horse habit. How my relative success as an eventer holds up against any other measuring stick can't be the only way I gauge impact, right?

Realistically, it's not clear whether I'll still be eventing in 10 years or 25 years. Who knows, right? Things change. What I DO know tho, is that no matter what I'm doing at that future time, there will probably be a horse involved. Because that's what I really want, separate from everything else. That's a choice I expect to keep reaffirming again and again.

pc Austen Gage

And somehow, the simple act of reminding myself that this whole thing is a choice, this is what I've chosen, helps keep me focused on why. Not just in terms of what success means to me today as an eventer, but what significance it would have to that little girl with her stickers and model horses too.

pc Austen Gage

They say that "visioning" is a self-awareness exercise, a chance to sit down and really think about what we are, and why. So we can be deliberate in our choices today in keeping with our vision for tomorrow. A lot of this is in some ways a continuation of the process I used to set goals for this year, and in other ways a reminder to stay true to that process.

Or, haha, ya know.... Maybe it's all just pointless navel-gazing. Who's to say, really? For me, tho, it's useful and empowering to think through. Have you ever likewise sat down to think about how you measure success in horses? Whether that success is based on internal or external factors? Or how that definition may have changed and evolved over the years, or what it might look like in the near or distant future?