Tricia Mangan. Winter Olympic Games Beijing 2022. Photo: GEPA pictures

“Time to get relative” is a frequent quote in Matthew McConaughey’s autobiography Greenlights. He uses it as a reminder, agent of change, and guiding principle as he “navigates the autobahn of life.” I’ve been thinking about this saying a lot since finishing Greenlights. McConaughey insists that we must get relative with the inevitable and the timing and our reaction to this reality is what defines us; defines the “art of living.” I like this mindset. It has been particularly meaningful to me recently, because I have found myself facing a familiar struggle, one I am not proud of and have tried to ignore the inevitability of in the past. 

There will be good and bad days

In ski racing there are good days, and there are bad days. And there are almost certainly more bad days than good days. But what makes a bad day a truly bad day? My bad days are objectively pretty incredible. I am skiing in amazing places with amazing training, beautiful weather, and great friends around. It feels so unbelievably selfish and ungrateful to have a bad day in such an amazing setting, being able to do what I am doing. My relative sorrow, frustration, anger, whatever it is I’m feeling, is insignificant in the big scheme of things. And yet, I’ve had some really ‘bad days’ during my skiing career.

I care a lot about skiing. It’s probably why I am still racing and have gotten as far as I have. If I didn’t care, I wouldn’t get upset. And so, I’ve come to realize that my bad days are inevitable. The only way forward is to accept this and ‘get relative’ with my reaction to them. I still lose sight of the big picture sometimes and that makes me feel guilty and ungrateful. But I’m getting better at acknowledging the validity of my frustration, sorrow, anger and using it as motivation, understanding why I’m feeling that way, where it’s coming from and then moving on.

Overcoming defeat

Defeat seems to be inherently intertwined with the commitment to pursue excellence at any endeavor, and I have learned to accept this defeat as part of the process, accept that I am lucky to be feeling emotions so strongly even if they aren’t always positive emotions. And I’m slowly changing my reaction to this ‘defeat’. I can be upset and frustrated about a bad run or session and still be grateful and appreciative of what I have. One does not preclude the other. And I am certainly aware of the scope of my relative ‘bad days’. Again, we learn as we go.

I started writing this on a bad day, but today was actually really good. Funny how that works. 

If you want to follow Tricia and hear more about her World Cup journey, you can follow her blog: https://triciamangan.substack.com/ for more updates.