Blog #2
I guess I should do an introductions or something so here it is:
My Name is Matt MacCallum, born and raised in western Canada. My passions in life are skiing and photography. Both of em really kicked off when I was around 14 or so. Was very fortunate growing up that my School had an amazing photo and multimedia class which I signed up for every year til graduation. We got to use some nice, at the time at least, Canon DSLRs and even got to take pictures on film and develop them in the schools dark room.
Thinking back on it, some of my fondest memories of high school are from that class and super lucky to have that opportunity. Though once I graduated, I probably didn’t pick up a camera for almost an 5 years. I got preoccupied with skiing and trying to go pro, not realizing that my future goals would be combining the two. I competed in provincials and was gutted when I had to turn down my first and only chance to go to nationals after I crushed my spleen.
Thinking back on it, some of my fondest memories of high school are from that class and super lucky to have that opportunity. Though once I graduated, I probably didn’t pick up a camera for almost an 5 years. I got preoccupied with skiing and trying to go pro, not realizing that my future goals would be combining the two. I competed in provincials and was gutted when I had to turn down my first and only chance to go to nationals after I crushed my spleen.
This hit me hard at 16, I was left feeling extremely down on myself and that post injury depression was setting in. My folks thought my skiing career was over so they never signed me back up to the club which was to bad because my progression really didn’t stop. Crushing my spleen taught me how hard I have to fall to really hurt myself which strangely gave me more confidence than fear.
Though I accept it now, I was upset that I lost my support and it took me a while to come to terms that being a factory sponsored, professional skier wasn’t meant to be. Thankfully my old coach got me into coaching the same team I used to be part of. This was an amazing opportunity and something that helped shift my priorities so I felt I could not only still do something I love but share that passion as well. I loved this job but I needed to take a step back from it. I was still too focused on my own skiing and felt it wasn’t fair of me to do that to the kids I was coaching.
One thing was creeping up though that I didn’t realize. Over the years, I’ve rattled the old noggin a few to many times, from crazy biking accidents, falling off/being dragged by a horse to the countless times I’ve dummied myself at the ski hill. With that, depression set in hard for a few years. I made some bad choices and lost quite a few friends in those times. I was extremely anxious in social surroundings due to my brain just shutting down mid conversations and the illogical fits of anger that would spawn over the simplest things and felt like my decision making was untrustworthy. It was definitely tough times and none of em were my proudest. This left me feeling misunderstood and dumb. Misunderstood because at the time, there was very little known of the effects concussions really have on an individual and dumb because I struggled articulating even just a simple sentence, let a lone the ability to say how I truly felt. I struggled with this for almost 10 years until I finally had enough of feeling like shit. I got on SRI’s and quickly realized that they are not the solution. It wasn’t until I stumbled across a YouTube video that recommended looking up a book called Feeling Good by David D. Burns that I started to notice improvements. That book really helped me realize I’m the only one who can take ownership and re-establish my life is me. I’m not going to wake up one day a changed man, I gotta make that change. And put the effort in daily. Since coming to that realization, it has helped me gain domain over my life again. I finally feel that I’m back in the drivers seat and though I’m still building my confidence back up in my decision making, but that book gave me the tools I needed to fix that issue and with working on it every day, I’ll have that confidence reclaimed in no time.
Got a little more into it than I thought with this but I figured to avoid being disingenuous, I’d much rather take an honest approach to sharing where I’ve come from and the journey its taken me on. But yeah, I think that’s more than enough for today but hopefully with that insight, people looking at my photo’s and videos can understand where I draw my inspiration from.
Got a little more into it than I thought with this but I figured to avoid being disingenuous, I’d much rather take an honest approach to sharing where I’ve come from and the journey its taken me on. But yeah, I think that’s more than enough for today but hopefully with that insight, people looking at my photo’s and videos can understand where I draw my inspiration from.