You will never become anything, and that is your reward
To some that title will be shocking. It wasn’t uttered sarcastically either as the above video illustrates. In my opinion it’s actually a pretty hard task to never become anything in our Society. Every decision we make corrals us into a bracket with a series of parameters that need to be adhered to. Every day we work in a given job we become more and more likely to continue to spend our lives working in that same line of work. Fear of insecurity makes us do it to ourselves. In general we don’t like to feel insecure. However, living right on the cusp of my fears and always feeling a little insecure is where I, personally, have found I grow the most. “Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing.” - Helen Keller This brings me to a thought I’ve been having lately in regards to setting goals for oneself. I’ve tried to put some form to it as every time I bring it up in conversation it is met with much consternation. Expect me to revisit the subject in the future. My thoughts are that Goals are a bad thing. But only a particular type of goal. Let me elaborate. The word “goal” has a pretty broad definition. We’re in a New Year now (gosh is it February already!) and people ask “What are your goals for this year, or, your New Year Resolutions?”. For me I’ve got a series of expectations for myself this year. I’d like to do a sustained technical route on a large mountain. I’d like to lead a multi-pitch rock climb. I’d like to get better at Down Hill MTB. There are a few peaks and hikes that I’d like to visit also. There’s also my endeavor to drop my body weight below 170lbs and run in the Squamish50 23km race as written about here So I have a bunch of goals you could say. But why do I want to achieve them? This is the crucial part. I want to achieve them because I believe I will feel more fulfilled by doing so, that it will help me grow as a person and that reaching these goals will be a source of happiness for me. So, in short, for me Reaching Goals = Fulfillment + Growth + Happiness. One problem with the mentality behind setting some goals for ourselves is that we can potentially imprison ourselves within the parameters of that goal. The further away in...
Runners High
For years I didn’t think this actually existed. It was a way for the avid runners to trick the beginners into thinking there is some special reward for the punishment of pounding out miles. I always thought it was some secret club I could never belong to. I mean I have been running for a while now. I wouldn’t call it training for a marathon style, but I have always been an active person and enjoyed the satisfaction of knowing I was doing something good for my body. But it wasn’t until I really decided to start running, the 5 days a week kind of running, that I finally realized what this all elusive runners high was all about. Now I know what you’re thinking, ” good god do I really have to run that often to feel good about running?'” The answer of course is no! I think I must have experienced it before but paid no attention to what my body was telling me because I was always thinking, I could have went faster or I should have went farther. My own mind was getting in the way of really reaping the chemical rewards of running. It wasn’t until I actually came to terms with what my body was achieving and what it’s limits were(based on how hard I actually decided to train) that I was able to see past what I didn’t accomplish and really accept what I had. Now that I have realized this connection I feel this “high” so much more often than I ever thought possible. Whether it’s 3 miles or 26.2 miles, to me it’s about pushing yourself at that moment. Give everything you can at each run and accept the limits your body puts on you. Some days are gonna hurt and some days are going to be glorious. Some days you’ll feel like you can run forever and some days a mile is going to feel like the most difficult thing you have ever done. But that is the beauty of running to me. I love the...
Julbo Tensing: Thoughts on Glacier Glasses
For the past decade I’ve worn Ray-Ban Aviators as my sunglasses of choice. I love them and for the longest time my eyes had never felt strained from sunlight while wearing them. This all changed when I started Mountaineering and hiking across glaciers and snowfields. For those that haven’t been high in the mountains on a sunny day in June in the middle of a glacier it is hard to describe the intensity of the brightness. The snow surface acts like billions of tiny mirrors reflecting the suns light at you from every angle. Without some kind of protection for your eyes you can go “snow blind” very quickly. The higher you go, the thinner the atmosphere which means more damaging UV radiation is hitting your skin. I’ve had my skin badly burnt high in the mountains even on a cloudy, dark day. Add together the increased UV radiation at higher elevations and the reflective nature of snow and ice and you have a cocktail which makes Sunlight just one the many additional dangers a Mountaineer needs to be aware of and protect against. I struggled through however, continuing to use my Aviators in the mountains for the past few years as I could get by without full eye protection, which in hindsight, was pretty stupid of me. My Ray-Bans filtered out most UV radiation hitting my eyes straight on but my eyes would feel strained from glancing rays coming under and through the sides of my glasses. The final straw that made me finally decide to retire my Ray-Bans from Glacier use was when I was climbing Mount Rainier last August. Above 4000m’s on the Ingraham Glacier in the midday sun I was experiencing the strongest UV radiation ever. Even with my Ray-Bans on I could barely let my eyes open a slit to see. After hours of this I had to cover my eyes to try and rest them whenever we’d stop for a break on our descent. I’d spent thousands making sure I had all the necessary equipment to protect my body on this huge mountain but neglected to think about spending less than a hundred bucks to protect my eyes. Once back to civilization I started looking online for Glacier Glasses. Julbo will almost always show up if you do a search yourself as they seem to be a market leader for this specific class of sunglasses. Ultimately, as the title suggests, I chose the Julbo Tensing. It had the right mix of functionality, weight, price (~$50) and aesthetics for my needs. Plus, the name Tensing also sold me a little. It’s an homage to Tenzing Norgay,...
Twenty Three
Twenty Three seems to be of some significance to me of late. When I turned 23 years old a few very important things happened to me. I’d just got married and have never looked back, I got my Bachelors Degree and graduated. It was also when I first started to think about moving to Canada from Ireland at some point in the future. During my time at College I had access to a free Gym daily and would spend time working out and running on treadmills during my time between labwork and lectures. I weighed ~170lbs but a lot of that was muscle weight. When I left College, got a job and settled into married life I started to gain more weight. The problem was that I had increased my caloric intake over time because I had been building muscle mass. I suddenly stopped working out when I graduated as it was no longer free or convenient to go to a gym but my body was now used to the larger diet. I wouldn’t say I ballooned over night but over the course of 3 years I believe I gained over 110lbs. The last time I weighed myself I was ~270lbs and then I just stopped weighing myself for months but I know I got a fair bit heavier. I’m going to conservatively estimate I reached 280lbs but it was probably more. I want to be clear at this point that my weight didn’t bother me much, and I don’t look back now and think how awful it was that I let myself get that heavy. I believe that the body is a machine used to achieve the aspirations of the mind. If your aspirations don’t require you to have the body of a gorilla or a cheetah then you shouldn’t waste time trying to make it look and respond like that. It’s like buying a Ferrari just to drive to the Supermarket. My interests back then resided in mostly sedentary endeavors. I loved to consume visual media; Games, Movies, TV. My job was sedentary but I enjoyed it. I worked on and with computers, in my spare time I would build, “tweak” and “overclock” computers and then play PC games on them. We like to laud the thin, fast and strong and chastise the fat, slow and weak and this is unfair. A person should be viewed based on how happy they are, regardless of form or means, and back then I was happy. Then the Financial crisis in 2008 happened. It didn’t drastically affect me, but it soured the milk enough that living in Ireland lost its...
Sometimes I forget…
I forget that I’m mortal. Ah, that macabre topic, Mortality. Oh how we like to ignore it. Posts like this usually stop being read around this point. We were all happily wrapped in our cocoon of distraction on the internet and in general and I had to remind us of the inevitable, that hourglass over our shoulders that never stops trickling sand. I like to read about Entrepreneurs and those that are driven by a singular passion. They all share one important way of thinking in common, they are all acutely aware of their own mortality. But they don’t view it as a negative, they channel that knowledge into fueling their passion to live well and follow their dreams. Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. - Steve Jobs Procrastination and laziness are symptoms of forgetting we are mortal. Sometimes I waste a day doing nothing. The weather is bad and my energy is low and I’ve lost focus, like today actually. I spend time locked in a mental ouroboros of questions like: “what does it mean”, “where am I going”… the usual ones we all ask ourselves at some point. Sunrise comes and sunset goes and the day is gone. At the end of each day, before I sleep, I try to take stock of how I’ve grown. Even if that growth is mental alone or purely physical then I will sleep well. As if you could kill time without injuring eternity. - Henry David Thoreau But just wasting time to pass the day will ultimately bother me. I do it, I’m human, I need to decompress sometime. I also see the benefit of taking some time for personal reflection. But it’s important to not let oneself get into a habit of it. Live as if you were to die tomorrow. Learn as if you were to live forever. - Mahatma Gandhi I read once that feeling a nagging sense of dissatisfaction is a good thing, it’s what drives change in our lives. If we were satisfied and comfortable, why would we ever change or grow? So I embrace that feeling of dissatisfaction. I am mortal. The knowledge of it pushes me out of bed earlier in the morning to experience more of the day. When I sit idle watching fiction on TV that teaches me very little I feel a visceral unease to move. I...
