“The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.” – Henry David Thoreau
Colin O’Brady, an adventurer, was recently on Joe Rogan’s podcast and eloquently expanded on Thoreau’s quote. He said (and I’m paraphrasing here) that he thinks of life events as a scale from one through ten, with one being the worst thing that can happen to you and ten being the best. What he fears is not experiencing the ones (which he experienced many times during his 54-day solo trek in Antarctica), but it is living a life only experiencing a four through six on that scale. He understands that ones are needed to appreciate the fours, fives, and sixes, and that he gets to experience the tens (like summiting Mount Everest, finishing his Antarctic expedition, and rowing across the Drake Passage) BECAUSE of the ones, not in spite of them.
It got me thinking…what were the highest and lowest points for you within the past year? What about within the past five years? If you look back and your lowest low or your highest high is basically between a four and six, ask yourself if you’re happy with that. If you are, no problem. Keep doing what you’re doing. But if you’re not, if you want more, what are some of the things you have always dreamt of doing but never made the time for or didn’t want to take the risk? Understand that to get to those tens, you’re going to have to feel some of those ones as well. If you believe it’s worth the trade off, then go for it!
Lastly, don’t think that it’s too late. It’s never too late to get started. When you say to yourself, “I can’t do that,” you’re taking the easy way out. You’re giving yourself an excuse. Instead, ask yourself, “how can I do that?” By asking how you can do something, you shift your mindset and begin to think outside of the box to get where you want to be.