Growth as a human is always uncomfortable. And I once had a boss in my knife-selling days who always said nothing worth having is easy to get. But the things that truly fulfill and lift us, that get us the closest to understanding why we exist on this earth, are always the ones that test us the most. Paddling out into heavy waves, what feels like an eternity stroking and diving and fighting and you really want to go back in but you refuse to give up and then you're in the lineup, the waves are bigger than anything you've ridden before, you're scared to ride them but you drop in anyway - and suddenly you're in heaven.
You break your rut, either by moving or changing jobs or changing careers or significant others or whatever. So many people walk around in a semi-haze, always their eyes on the "someday" at the expense of today, only to wake up and realize that tomorrow's "someday" has become yesterday and they wouldn't have known it for the similarity yesterday has to today and no doubt will have to the new tomorrow and the day after.
Snowboarding and skiing are easy ways to constantly challenge yourself - you can always find steeper, more difficult, more frightening runs. And drop bigger cliffs should you max out the steepness. And then comes the exploration part. Hiking through warm weather is tough, no doubt. There's the danger of dehydration. In some hot regions malaria and other diseases run rampant. And then the whole snake/monkey/wild boar thing. But there are few things more testing and uncomfortable and life-affirming as a snowy mountain climb, especially when you extend that over a full expedition.
There's the altitude side of things, where in spite of months, hell years of training you pass an elevation and you feel like your lungs have collapsed. And the cold, losing the feeling in your fingers and toes and having to push on while trying not to think about whether or not you have frostbite and might need to get a chunk of your body cut off. And just the sheer challenge of carrying 40 to 60 pounds up thousands of vertical feel, having to negotiate powder fields and sheer rocks and, depending on how high and where, having to go over and around glacial crevasses, the very real specter of death looming. Starvation, hypothermia, the fact that one minor slip can result in serious injury or death - yeah, that's some shit.
And when you get to the top - there's truly no feeling as good in this entire world as when you've worked so hard for something that tested you so much and, in spite of all the times you wanted to turn back, you succeed.
As such, I recently came across this sick flick sponsored by North Face in which living legend Conrad Anker takes two big mountain skier/snowboarders, Sage Cattabriga-Alosa and Lucas Debari, to the summit of the tallest mountain in North America to ski back down. It's a great shot of the fun, fear, and fury that comes from climbing. And the real kicker is that these two guys live in big mountains, no doubt have spent thousands of hours hiking and clomping around crazy backcountry peaks, probably are fitter than 99% of the American population yet this expedition was a huge test. Yeah, and throwing a flatspin over a crevasse is just fuckin' insane. Check it out, THE DENALI EXPERIMENT.
So there it is. Next time you're sitting around, surrounded by all sorts of THINGS in your apartment or house which may make your life easier but haven't made you any happier, make the decision to do something uncomfortable, painful, and a bit scary. I can guarantee you'll be rewarded with a feeling of strength, accomplishment, and fulfillment better than anything else you've ever felt in your comfortable life. And for those who know that, well, what better time than now to go push it some more?
Happy Friday,
Ryan
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