"Comfortably Uncomfortable"

            “Just breath.” No breath came. I was gasping for air, but it no longer helped. “It can’t be that much farther,” I told myself with my legs screaming in agony. I wanted to stop running. I wasn’t going to quit. I kept on with the wind in my face. I looked down at my watch. It said I had been running for thirty minutes, so I thought to myself that’s about four miles at a seven thirty pace. I had set out on a five mile course, so that meant only one mile left, but in my head I knew I hadn’t actually run fast enough to do four miles in thirty minutes. This was just one of the small lies I tell myself to keep me going. “Ooh, there’s a house I recognize,” we must be getting close to the school, again talking my way into proceeding. “I can see the entrance, this is the final leg,” and all of a sudden I conjured up the strength to lengthen my strides and finish off strong.

This was a day like any other of track and field practice. No run was ever suppose to be just a stroll. If there was no pain then it wasn’t helping. Every day before the team split up into their events the head coach, Thomas Jacobs, would give his speech to the entire team. There were the weekly events, what each event would do that day, and some kind of inspirational words, whether they applied to track and field or just real life in general. His famous words that I’ll never forget were “comfortably uncomfortable.” Nothing was ever suppose to be easy. “If something wasn’t worth working for it wasn’t worth doing.”

These words applied to track and field, but they can be applied to basically anything. If something is easy then you can already do it. It’s all about pushing yourself to do things that you don’t think you can. At the same time, there is a limit to anyone’s abilities and you don’t want to hurt yourself. Life is all about balance, and finding that point that requires all your focus and effort, but isn’t damaging to you physically or mentally. In the case of track and field, I was a long distance runner and I had to find that distance and speed each day that would push me to the limit each day.

Testing ourselves is what helps us learn and get better. Being comfortable is overrated because with comfort comes stagnancy.  We didn’t learn how to walk from crawling and we didn’t learn to run from walking. Of course we did one before the other, but it was the fact that one day we tried to walk or we tried to run. We don’t get new from the old. We choose to be new and get rid of the old. The world evolves from people who are “comfortably uncomfortable.”

We Live because we Die

“Only I can live forever.” Well unfortunately you can’t Voldemort. A wise man once said “the only two certainties in life are death and taxes” (Mark Twain) and he was right, although these days he may have only been right about the death part. After Enkidu dies, Gilgamesh sets himself on the ultimate quest to find Utnapishtim, the one human to succeed in finding immortality. When he arrives, Utnapishtim tells him “there is no permanence” (106), and that eventually everyone’s journey comes to an end and they become one with the earth. It became clear to Gilgamesh that immortality was out of his reach, at least in the physical sense. Utnapishtim tells him that humanity has permanence but no single human will live forever. It’s the circle of life, that some shall die so that others can be born. This cycle allows for an ever changing world that adapts to each new situation. With permanence comes a stagnant life that never leads to happiness. Irregularity allows a society to flourish.

But then there’s the great question, “what is the meaning of life?” Everyone answers this question in a different way. Some people have their own “bucket lists” of what they want to do before they die, but few people ever actually fulfill everything on their lists. But to me it’s not about doing everything, it’s about the journey and not about the end result. If people got up in the morning knowing they would never do everything they wanted they might just lay back in bed and never go on that journey.  I believe that people get up in the morning because of the sense of optimism that lives in all of us. We all like to believe in happy ever after’s and the knowledge of our mortality just gives us a deadline. We get up in the morning with that sense of urgency to do everything in the short time we have on this earth. Without a deadline, what is the point of work. It’s like any procrastinator in high school. In the end, the only thing that gets them to do the work is the fear of that goose egg they’ll get the next day, or in some cases that afternoon. Without deadlines, people lack the will to get things done. Instead of taking away people’s incentives to survive, it gives them even more reason to “live life to the fullest” because in the end its hope that their life can mean something that keeps people going.

People want to be remembered after they’re gone, and I think this is the number one goal on everyone’s list. All these famous quotes that I’ve used just in this one article are examples of people who were remembered. They eternalized themselves by making a difference and saying something that had never been said before. When Gilgamesh was told he could not live forever, he realized that his story could still live forever, and it does. We still read Gilgamesh’s story today, so he has succeeded and his name has survived the passing of time. It’s everyone’s goal to be part of history and to have people talk about them long after they are gone. We write things down, and before that, we told tales. This is how we humans live forever.

But we don’t all have to make a great invention or discover a new land like the few great people in history. To me being remembered just means that your friends and children still tell stories about you once you’re gone. The whole world doesn’t have to remember me as long as those who are important to me do. I will have led a successful life if I am able to touch those people around me for the better and be remembered for the little things. I want my ancestors to be able to sit around the dining room table and laugh about a joke I made, the awkward thing I said, or the stupid thing I did that my friends never let me forget. To me a successful life is one where someone remembers that you were there when the time comes that you aren’t.