Do What Scares You
I’m on a flight right now. There’s a woman next to me complaining about how long it took to board. We are already boarded, mind you, and in the air, in fact. We are on our way. And yet, she complains.
Do you have people who cause drama in your text group? Are you the drama? I’m guessing you aren’t, since you are getting this newsletter. It’s the ones who don’t get out enough who are.
Every once in a while, you need to do something that scares you. I’m on a flight to Memphis, where I will make my third attempt at a 100-miler. The weather doesn’t look fantastic. It really looks downright awful. But we have a 38-hour cutoff - a luxury, especially for such a relatively easy course at sea level — and a dream. It’s my dream. And it terrifies me.
But, you’ll notice, I’m not complaining about the fact that it took more than five minutes to board the plane, or that a baby is screaming three rows ahead of me, or that the baby just puked and so now the whole plane smells like a rotting raccoon. So many miseries just waiting to be griped about, and yet, here I sit, gripe free. What incredible willpower I have!
The thing is, it’s not so much willpower as it is the fact that I’m going to do this 100-miler. Running 100-milers will squeeze out any need for drama, or adventure, or adversity in our life. I’ll get plenty of all that during the run. So I don’t need it elsewhere.
Those people who love to cause drama in friend groups are the ones who not only don’t do 100-milers - in fairness, not a lot of people do those - but they probably don’t do anything that scares them. They probably don’t go for that new job, or keep the feral cat that keeps meowing at them on the front porch, or hike unless the weather is perfect and the road is paved. They’re the ones who see national parks from a bus, refuse to watch horror movies and prefer their burritos to be mild, please, without the peppers.
Life is difficult. It’s fucking hard, in fact, and you need to courage to get through it, especially when your government seems to be run by those same feral cats meowing at you. But you can’t just find courage. You have to earn it. You earn it by scaring yourself, surviving it - probably - and soaking in that wonderful feeling you get from doing something big and huge and spooky and succeeding.
Running 100 miles means knowing you’re going to feel pain, even a lot of it, and doing it anyway. It means you might be sick, hot or cold, or wet. It means not sleeping, at all, for a full day and night and probably until late in the afternoon the next day. It means not being comfortable for a long, long time.
People tell me they couldn’t do it. I don’t believe them. But I will acknowledge that I’ve earned this resilience and courage over many, many years, and it’s paid off for me in ways that go far beyond running 100 miles. I’ve survived getting fired, a divorce and several dog deaths. I’ve also had the privilege of doing many adventures that have fulfilled my life and left me grateful.
You need to prepare, and I can help you do that. But first you need to find the courage to try. And if you aren’t willing to look, then you’re right. You couldn’t do it.
