How a Former Navy Seal Found the Key to Inner Peace

What I learned about self-transcendence and suffering from former Navy Seal turned Ultra Marathoner, David Goggins

Photo by Eddie Kopp on Unsplash

This is impossible.

There’s this trail in my hometown that I love to run. It winds along this gorgeous little creek. Eight miles out (nine if you trust the map), that creek is crossed by a bridge. Every time I set out on that trail, I think about making it to that bridge. I’ve only done it once…on a mountain bike. But I’ve always wanted to run to it. And back. But that, I tell myself every time I turn back after a few miles, is impossible. But today, I’m here to do the impossible.

I got the idea from this book. It’s called Can’t Hurt Me, by David Goggins. And in that book, he told me it’s not impossible at all. Impossibility is something that only exists in my mind. All I have to do to prove it is to suffer and not quit. On the other side of suffering, he tells me, there’s greatness.

I’m not so sure. And I’m not so sure greatness is what I’m after. But, I’m curious. So, I’m here to suffer, to find out what’s impossible, and to find out what really lies on the other side of suffering.

David Goggins is onto something but it wasn’t greatness that I found. It was so much…