# 167: Holding On?
Story behind the Passage
The horse ran away today. We were taking a walk, there was a helicopter going back and forth in the air, she did not behave well at all, eating grass along the way, and then she decided to run. For a few hundred meters, I ran with her. I did not want to let go. I wanted her to stop. But I noticed, this time, she really meant it, she wanted to run home, she did not care at all what I wanted her to do. I thought about holding on. I was mad and perplex at the same time. Was she really scared of something or did she simply want to freak me out? It did not matter. I decided to let go. Then I watched her run from the distance. She did not stop. At least not soon. Only nearby the stable she stopped to eat grass. Then she continued her run. Her adventure stopped when another rider from the stable saw her and was able to “catch” her and calm her down.
Can you imagine now what made me think of Ameruoso’s book Too Late to Give Up?
My Learnings
“Erneut zieht er mich aus dem Rolli, schleift mich mit, aber dieses Mal nur drei oder vier Meter“ / “Again, he [the horse] pulls me out of the wheelchair and drags me along, this time, for only three or four meters.“ This exact passage came to my mind right after I had let go of the rope today. I immediately asked myself — why did I not hold on like Ameruoso? I was not even afraid of falling. I fall often — in every respect. The point was: I consciously decided to let go, even though that meant I would give in to her force — to her rules. Was she really scared of something, e.g., the helicopter, or was she playing with me? And if she was, what did this do to our relationship now?
Ameruoso did not let go. He repeated the exercise again and again until his horse stopped chasing the grass. You have to know, Ameruoso was doing all this in a wheelchair. I have two healthy legs and two healthy arms. Why did I let go? Why am I not able to tell her, no, to show her, who is the boss? Yes, I know, I often talk about “letting go.” In this case, however, letting go meant she won. And that is not how you “train” a horse. This is not how you make sure that your commands count, not hers. And why the hell does this happen again after we were through all this stuff at the beginning and I thought all the power play was a thing of the past already?
Still, just like Ameruoso’s subtitle Five Things that Horses Teach Us about Life suggest s— I do think that Lucky is still teaching me important lessons. With her behavior these days, she is certainly confirming how enduring horses are and that you have to get “dragged along” by holding on to the rope for twenty or thirty times until they finally stop following their own agenda — until they finally accept that you are making the rules. So, this is what Ameruoso mentions as one of his five lessons, i.e., “3. Learning endurance.” I think, with the horse, I still need to learn this endurance, even though I usually consider myself an enduring person.
But maybe I am mistaken?
Maybe I am just lying to myself?
Or, maybe, the opposite is true because endurance is the wrong motive for doing anything, for enjoying life?
If what Amuruoso is saying — and which I myself described in a short book already about my first year with the horse — the lessons that she teaches me also apply to life. And if that is true, then I need to rethink in which field exactly I am really practicing endurance and whether or not this is the “right” one.
“This is how the principle of living in the here and now prevents us, for example, from sticking to the wrong goals, just because we are obsessed with endurance and believe we should not give up” (Ameruoso 13–14, my translation).
Thank you, Lucky, no matter how nerve-wracking this was. You taught me another lesson today.
Reflection Questions
1) What are you holding on to because you really think it is too early to give up?
2) Did you ever learn anything from an animal? What was it?
3) If you had an accident tomorrow and ended up in a wheelchair, what is the thing that you love so much that you would continue doing it, no matter how difficult it would be?