“No successful endeavour begins with doubt.”

When I woke up this morning, those words were written into a pad I keep on my bedside table.  It is a habit I have had for catching those random thoughts that come into my head at any given hour of the night or day.  The hardest part about this habit is deciphering the reasoning why my brain has decided to churn out any given thoughts at any given time, not to mention the cryptic nature of my handwriting.  It is like a need a secret decoder ring or something.

What makes these words stand out is their clarity of understanding and the clear and concise way in which they were written…and the fact that I don’t remember writing them.  I have to admit I was a bit spooked at first.  It was if someone else entirely had grabbed my pen and paper and noted this brief, but legible thought.  I never had nightmares of monsters under my bed, but I am beginning to.  They would be more like Sir Edmund Hillary, Ernest Shackleton, Robert F. Scott, or Richard E. Byrd kind of monsters; the ones who dedicated their lives for the discovery of an unexplored world for the love of their country.

What you may be aware of is that all of these rugged explorers became infamous for their journeys into extreme environments.  I think that there is no greater challenge than fighting the elements, and of them, the bitter chill of an unrelenting polar environment is the pinnacle of what many attempt to define as “extreme”.  We use the word “extreme” so much nowadays that it has lost its punch.  There are only so many words to describe the opposite ends of the environmental spectrum; conditions so bad that they defy logic and belief.

I went running yesterday in -22 degrees Celcius for an hour.  My thoughts mingled and roamed, doing their best to distract me from the amount of discomfort I was experiencing after badly rolling my right ankle for the third time in as many months.  I figured the cold would sooth the impending swelling and that my mind was strong enough to maintain my pace while forgetting my pain.  I kept reminding myself, “You are an adventure racer now.  You have to be able to push through this.”  I worked harder to concentrate on other things, but each time I came back to the bum ankle.  Then I could feel the creeping sensation of doubt and uncertainty wash over me.

During his lifelong obsession in seeking the North Pole, U.S. Naval Officer Robert E. Peary, after losing several toes to frostbite, was quoted as declaring, “A few toes aren’t much to give to achieve the Pole.”  Such extremes reveal what is inside a person in the most unusual and unexpected of circumstances.  In attempting to achieve our singular goals we may have to reach out to find the nakedness of our own souls to find the muster to keep going.  Is that an inane quality that people either do or do not have or is it something that can be taught or trained for?  When the chips are down, I ask myself, will I have what it takes to keep going when things are bad?

Then I woke up the next morning to find my subconscious thoughts scrawled on my bedside table.  When the time comes to challenge my mind and determination to continue, I will count my fingers and toes and in finding them all accounted for, will proceed with a renewed vigour that I have once again been able to squelch doubt out of the way of success and will push forward, one step at a time.

Until next time…..TODD

Quest4PQ@gmail.com

This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 13th, 2009 at 10:00 am and is filed under Primal Quest, Todd Phillips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.