Your Greatest Obstacle
I heard somewhere that a goldfish has a memory that only lasts about two seconds. Now wouldn’t that be handy at times? Unpleasant experiences would only be remembered for two seconds before you forgot all about them, never to have the memory of the unpleasant moment bother you again. What is the sum of all our experiences, except for the memory of them?
If you were offered a vast sum of wealth (millions of dollars, real estate, jewels, etc.) would you undergo 24 hours of the most hideous torture you could imagine? Now ask yourself the same question if you were told you would have absolutely no memory of it. All you would know after it was over was that you were rich, but you wouldn’t know why. This might not seem so bad. After all, if you have no memory of it, would it really have happened?
I recently purchased two bubble eyed goldfish for my daughter. She named them Bubbles and Fizz. We have them in a custom made fish tank that sits inside a birdcage (side note: why is “fish tank” two words, but “birdcage” one word?). I find it amazing that these fish never have the feeling of being caged, since the moment the thought occurs to them, they already forgot about it.
Unfortunately, humans mostly remember their unpleasant experiences for the remainder of their lives. Sometimes these thoughts pop up at unexpected moments and cause all sorts of neurosis. Like Hawkeye in an episode of M.A.S.H when he got a whiff of something that smelled like a wet burlap sack.
While training for Ironman, you are often left alone with nothing but your thoughts for long stretches at a time. Unless you are an eternally optimistic and upbeat person, I don’t think you can keep unpleasant thoughts from invading your mind while you struggle against fatigue, fear, and hunger. I think the key at these moments is
taking these thoughts and channeling them into another emotion. For me, that emotion is often anger which allows me to burn out the plaguing memories. Maybe that is why I train for endurance sports… to work out those memories that so plague me.
What do you do though when fear and anxiety are such that it is crippling in your ability to go on? Perhaps that is the greatest test of all as you are forced to reach down and overcome your greatest obstacle… Yourself.
If you were offered a vast sum of wealth (millions of dollars, real estate, jewels, etc.) would you undergo 24 hours of the most hideous torture you could imagine? Now ask yourself the same question if you were told you would have absolutely no memory of it. All you would know after it was over was that you were rich, but you wouldn’t know why. This might not seem so bad. After all, if you have no memory of it, would it really have happened?
I recently purchased two bubble eyed goldfish for my daughter. She named them Bubbles and Fizz. We have them in a custom made fish tank that sits inside a birdcage (side note: why is “fish tank” two words, but “birdcage” one word?). I find it amazing that these fish never have the feeling of being caged, since the moment the thought occurs to them, they already forgot about it.Unfortunately, humans mostly remember their unpleasant experiences for the remainder of their lives. Sometimes these thoughts pop up at unexpected moments and cause all sorts of neurosis. Like Hawkeye in an episode of M.A.S.H when he got a whiff of something that smelled like a wet burlap sack.
While training for Ironman, you are often left alone with nothing but your thoughts for long stretches at a time. Unless you are an eternally optimistic and upbeat person, I don’t think you can keep unpleasant thoughts from invading your mind while you struggle against fatigue, fear, and hunger. I think the key at these moments is
taking these thoughts and channeling them into another emotion. For me, that emotion is often anger which allows me to burn out the plaguing memories. Maybe that is why I train for endurance sports… to work out those memories that so plague me.
What do you do though when fear and anxiety are such that it is crippling in your ability to go on? Perhaps that is the greatest test of all as you are forced to reach down and overcome your greatest obstacle… Yourself.
posted by Rebel at 10:56 AM
1 Comments:
You wrote:
"What do you do though when fear and anxiety are such that it is crippling in your ability to go on? Perhaps that is the greatest test of all as you are forced to reach down and overcome your greatest obstacle… Yourself"
The great German philospher GW Hegel called it "Tarrying with the negative." To paraphrase him, it is only by tarrying with such depths of despair and self-doubt that we arrive at the authentic core of our being. You're a good man Charles, keep tarrying.
Post a Comment
<< Home