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Wanting

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How much time do I spend wanting instead of living? I have spent hours stretching into days, weeks, and months of wanting. Meanwhile, life passes by unnoticed.

Of recent note, I want a tiny house, a Sprinter van, or any place to call my own. But I also want to travel. And I want to change my habits and the habits of everyone around me. I want things to be other than the way they are. The wanting is endless.

All of this wanting is nothing but suffering, an itch that can never be scratched. I want to learn a better way. I want to know the suffering that is my endless stream of wants, and see it for what it truly is: the impossible quest to swim against the current of constant change that is life.

Based on a journal entry from 4.17.16

Asking the Right Questions

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Screenshot of fitness tracker app

We live in an age and culture obsessed with tracking and documenting every detail of our lives and then sharing half of those details with everyone else. We use apps that allow us to enter what we eat. We wear devices that track our every movement and tell us how well we sleep at night. Spotify tells the world what songs we are singing, and we willingly let people know where we are through location enabled apps. I suppose we use these numbers, tweets, and status updates to define the boundaries of who we are in this ever more crowded world. We measure and record who we are and what we do in some hope that perhaps all that information will somehow inform us as to where to go and what to do next.

We are looking for answers, but have we even thought about what questions we really need to be asking?

From a journal entry dated 3.12.14

House of Pain

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Runner crossing a Fakahatchee prairie

When running an ultramarathon, you build a house of pain and learn to make it your home. I kept reminding myself of this while participating in the 2017 Everglades Ultras 50K trail run. Pain came in the form of a tight left quadricep that never loosened up and pain rained down from above as the sun baked me while running across the open prairies of Fakahatchee Strand State Park.

A runner must befriend pain to be successful in completing an ultra. Pain is the house that we build by putting our body and mind up to an intense physical challenge. The foundation of the house are the hundreds of training miles stretched out behind us. We hammer the nails in the walls with each step we take towards the finish line. From within these walls, there are windows into our soul and doorways that can lead us in new directions.

But this house of pain is only a temporary dwelling. We make it a home and learn to be comfortable with the discomfort. If we put our energy into trying to reject this place, we will miss out on all the lessons it has to teach us.

The end of the run will come. All things do pass. So enjoy your house of pain during your stay. Revel in it. Let it be your classroom. Look out its windows and see that many of your fears are smoke and mirrors and your daily worries trivial things. When you leave, walk out its door stronger than you could have ever imagined.