“Do not pray for an easy life, pray for the strength to endure a hard one.”
-Bruce Lee
Dear friends.
What I am about say may evoke the words “ignorant” or “privileged” in your mind. However if you are here by your own volition, I implore you to keep reading. I wish to give you a gift of words, and hold a mirror to your innate potential.
It is true that the world is inperfect. We live in both the best and worst of times. Best in what we have, worst in what we think we ought to have.
But let’s start with a story: The story of David Goggins.
David Goggins was just another poor African-American boy. You may say he was underprivileged given his upbringing. In his own words, his life should have been a statistic.
He was born in 1975 in upstate New York. His father was a violent pimp who beat him and his mother regularly until they left him. He grew up being called N****r every day of his life. He was labelled with a learning disability because he could not read, a fact made even more pronounced by his stutter. On top of that, he would go on to develop asthma.
Adverse childhood events like these should have led to obesity, mental illness, and poverty.
They did, for awhile. As a young man, he had almost zero confidence and self worth. Even though his young mind begged for help, no one came. No social justice, affirmative action or divine hand gave him anything for free. You may find that sad, but the David Goggins today would look to that fact with pride and gratitude.
After dropping out of school, he did not obtain a higher education or job qualification. He did not have a plan, and therefor no future. He would have, by polite nomenclature, been defined as socioeconomically disadvantaged. Not so politely put, his life was one big hell hole.
He later joined the army, but flunked out due to having sickle cell trait. Actually, as he would later admit, he flunked out due to cowardice. After his discharge he became obese. He spent his days working menial labor jobs requiring little social interaction or skill. One notable job involved spraying for cockroaches in dirty restaurants after closing time.
After coming home from work late one evening with a milkshake in hand, the young David Goggins came across an ad.
On the television, there were young men his age going through Navy SEAL training. He saw fit and healthy men subjected to physical conditions akin to torture. Something clicked for David. It was fascinating to him why people would do this to themselves. All throughout his life, he had been running away from discomfort, yet discomfort had always seemed to find him. Right then and there, he decided to split from the program.
At this point he made a choice that would later go on to define his legend. Despite his upbringing and all of his disadvantages, he challenged himself to embrace the darkness. Instead of running away from the pain, fear, and uncertainty, he sprinted towards them like they were the best things for him- And they were.
Like batman himself, David Goggins saw the light in the darkness.
He quit his cockroach spraying job, and applied to join the Navy SEAL with a singular purpose- To take one of the weakest men that God had ever created, and make him one of the strongest. At first nobody took him seriously, and many laughed in his face. “You’re black and you’re fat” was the message he received. None of it fazed him, as he trained to lose over 100 pounds in a mere three months time, all the while studying his butt off. That hard work paid off, and he was finally admitted to SEAL.
That was not the end of his story- Far from it. David Goggins went on to complete multiple SEAL “Hell weeks” in which he endured sleep-deprivation, cold, and psychological abuse from instructors- Much like what he saw on television, but even more full colored because it was real life. Where most people do not even finish, David Goggins finished that toughest of weeks of SEAL training multiple times.
This was not intentional, however. His body kept rolling him back. First it was double pneumonia, then a knee cap fracture. Imagine going through hell with your spirit intact and your body broken, only to be told you needed to go through hell again and again. Where most men who were more “privileged” than him quit, Mr. Goggins kept going. He came out of the other side a stronger man. But more importantly, he came out as David Goggins: The hero he was destined to be.
David Goggins would go on to challenge himself in ways unimaginable to the normal human being.
His list of accomplishments would eventually include completing over sixty ultra-marathons while raising money for fallen soldiers’ children. He would complete Delta force training. He would obtain the Guinness world record for most pull ups performed in 24 hours. He would go through multiple heart surgeries for a congenital heart defect and not skip a beat, pun intended. He has become one of the best live recruiters for the US Navy by orating his story and message across the country- As a man who had a stutter, and who was labelled as educationally challenged.
When asked what he desired, his answer was simple:
“To be uncommon among uncommon people.”
This is David Goggins’ story. Take from it what you will. The moral I chose to take is this:
Hard work does not care about your background or circumstance.
It does not care about your suffering or your victim-hood. It is a universal virtue that gifts anyone who embraces it. We all have the ability to not only survive, but thrive.
This brings us back to the first statement. Today is the best time in humanity because endless possibilities exist to create wealth, health, and happiness. The only cost to all of this is turning towards the things you do not want to face. If you look around, most people are content to give five, maybe ten percent of focused effort each day. Each time something gets hard, people cave in to procrastination and laziness. This is why I say that we live in the best and worst of worlds. But you can be great, and all it takes is a little bit of suffering.
This is the mindset I embrace on my life, and the idea I use for my career.
During my medical school training and residency, I have often challenged myself like David. Being a medical trainee is a demanding job with a seemingly never-ending stream of work. Most of my days start early in the morning, and finish near or after midnight. I have had many 36+ hour work days where I sleep an hour or two, if any. I have seen nurses come in, finish a shift, go home, come back and finish another day’s shift before my own shift was done.
Many times I wanted to shrug off my responsibilities and go back to the care-free days of childhood. Sometimes I just wanted put down my stethoscope and sleep. I almost never want to stay up for that few extra minutes to pre-read my patients, or to make that extra round on the ward.
Some patients understood the work and commitment it took to be in my position. Others, for the lack of a better expression, did not give a ****. When nurses, patients, and families look to you for help when you are 30 hours knee deep into a shift, when every fibre of your body wants to go home and sleep, you are faced with a simple decision.
Do I go, or do I stay to face the music?
I will not get on a soapbox and preach about what the correct choice is. Frankly, I do not always make the same decision. That being said.
Whenever I am faced with a tough responsibility, I think of David Goggins and others like him.
I think of that boy who was against the wall his entire life. That boy who came from nothing and still worked like he was nothing. That boy is not David, nor me. That boy is the spirit of the prime mover.
Brief instances, and there are few in life, offer you the chance to become that boy. David Goggins embraced those moments at every turn. In those moments the answer to the question is revealed. The question that most people go through life without ever asking themselves.
Do you dare to be the hero in your own story?
If your answer is yes, then remember this: The more you don’t want to do something, the more you HAVE to do it.
A physician once told me something very important. “There are only a few years of residency training.” He said to me. “You need to get the most out of these few years, because they will go by fast.” Replace the words “residency training” with “life”, and you will start to understand David Goggins’ message.
I do not know who you are, nor your circumstances.
I do not care if you think I am privileged. I am.
My privilege is courage. I am not blessed because everything in my life went right. I am blessed because I have the will to fight.
At every barrier and challenge in your journey, there is always a choice. You can stay in your comfort zone, or you can enter the zone. You can run from the storm, or you can become it.
What you decide may very well determine your destiny.
Until next time.
Your friend,
-Tie
P.S.
I highly recommend David Goggins’ book CAN’T HURT ME.
It is liquid courage in the form of words- Just like this blog.
Do not let others tell you that you cannot achieve something, even when they try to portray you as a victim. The only victim is the wall which you will run through to conquer your goals. Run neither afraid nor boastful towards your fear, and your fear will dissipate.
What you are then left with is peace.
Leave a Reply