I started climbing at 16. I had just received $500 from my grandmother, and was debating whether I wanted to buy more music equipment or get into rock climbing.

I was probably influenced by my older brother, who had started climbing the summer before. And it was something that I was in awe of and wanted to try, having grown up in an active, outdoorsy family.

I started climbing with my buddy Sam, who had spent every summer in Yosemite with his parents who were Park Rangers. And though he was surrounded by some of the best climbing in the world, he, too, had never taken his outdoors skills to that next level.

Like many young men before us, we wanted to push ourselves physically and see what we were truly capable of. So I took that money and bought all the rock climbing gear I needed. We read Freedom of the Hills, got pointers from older concerned climbers, and practiced.

We learned how to climb by setting up a top rope on the chimney of his house. (A top rope is when the rope runs through the anchors above you as you climb, so that when you fall, you stay where you are, dangling on the rope.) The chimney was close to 20 feet tall and had all kinds of different holds to hang on to. In fact, it had a fairly difficult route that took us a while to project.

Now, 15 years later, it’s sort of funny to reflect back and laugh, because I still prefer to top rope the crux sections on my projects (the hardest moves in a route.) There’s something really comforting about this, like comfort foods that remind me of home, like lasagna, or meatloaf, or mac and cheese.

In these early years, though I rock climbed, I was more of a generalist. I tried everything and did all of the sub disciplines of climbing: mountaineering, alpine, traditional, sport, bouldering, buildering- (that’s where you climb on buildings, though after 9/11 people really became uncomfortable with this), ice, mixed, and dry tooling.

What we choose to specialize in is based a lot on the conditions in our immediate environment, and the people we surround ourselves with. If you live in a ski community, you will probably ski; if you live in a surfing community, you will probably surf; if you live next to best music schools, you will probably play music. This isn’t always the case, but lowering the barriers to entry and the activation energy required to get started in an activity increases your likelihood of doing that activity. Once you’re hooked, then you probably wouldn’t mind having to drive 10 hours for what you want.

I had moved to the Southwest for a while to pursue an undergraduate program that ended up not being a good fit. But during that time, I was surrounded by amazing bouldering and really strong, really psyched people. And so I became a boulderer.

Like sport climbing, bouldering met all the criteria that I needed in a physical practice when trying to answer the question of what are my physical limitations. Bouldering is just shorter and more powerful.

I eventually returned home to Washington, to finish my undergraduate degree, and was adopted and mentored by one of the strongest sport climbers in the state. We went climbing multiple times per week for years, predominately going to Little Si, since it’s only about 50 minutes away from where we live. I had returned to my roots, like those early days on the chimney — hard project sport climbing … project top roping really.

My mentor was a rope gun, meaning his could set up a top rope for me on any route that I could have imagined. This pushed my climbing to a new level. Over time, I focused more energy and attention exclusively on sport climbing. It was convenient having the hardest sport climbs in the state a short drive away.

Also, the older I got, the less interested I became in putting myself into situations simply to see if I could survive, which was the case with most of my mountaineering misadventures. I wanted to test myself physically (and mentally) in a safer, more controlled manner, rather than worrying about variables entirely outside of my control.

Sport climbing, more than climbing in general, fulfills most of what I need in a discipline. It’s a fun and challenging way to exercise. It’s social, and as difficult as you want. It’s a game with no end. You can find a route that matches your skill level and easily find a suitable challenge. It has immediate feedback: if you can’t do a specific move, you know, because you didn’t do it. You can see improvement over time: “Last week, I couldn’t do that move and this week I can. Awesome!” Improvement is directly tied to how much time and energy you invest; the more you put into it, the more you get out of it.

These are just a few of the reasons I have chosen sport climbing. The key takeaways here are: Although, I started as a generalist, and ended up a specialist, in those early days, I didn’t know what I would like. I had to try a few different things. And second, my specialty was largely a matter of convenience, timing, and condition of my environment.

To find your way, you probably don’t have to change what you already enjoy doing. Everything you need is right in front of you. You just have to consider what meaning or purpose it provides in your life.

This week I am encouraging readers and listeners to join the conversation on the new Art of Dogging Facebook page. What’s your practice? What’s the meaning and purpose behind why you do what you do? And finally, what were your conditions for starting: convenient location, timing, people?