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The Real Gift of Suffering Is Being in the Moment
Why do people take on extreme physical challenges when they don’t have to? Here’s one possible answer.
I cannot believe I’m about to do this. I know that if I think about it, if I take even a minute to collect myself, I might chicken out.
So, I start my timer and start running. I’m on the Kim Williams Trail, a knee-pounding gravel road built on top of the old rail line that winds through Hellgate Canyon along the Clark Fork River.
Ahead of me is a challenge I’m almost certain I won’t complete — a 13.1-mile trail run/hike with 3,416 feet of elevation gain, down Hellgate Canyon to the top of Mount Sentinel, across the ridge-line to Pattee Canyon and back.
My Own, Personal Comfort Crisis
Why am I doing this? I guess it’s to see if I can. To break out of my comfort zone. To rediscover some lost part of me, the part that used to love this kind of suffering, the part that found something valuable in it. For the life of me, I can’t remember what that is. The one thing I do know is that what I have been doing has not been working.
A few weeks ago, I sat at a coffee shop with my laptop open and my cursor blinking on an empty page. I’m here to write a…
