The human will is strong.
Yet, relying solely on will
Is not viable.
It works for the short-term;
Hustle culture.
But fads are like a sugar high –
I can’t sustain on a Kit Kat.
Nutrition,
Sustenance
Are found in a foundation built on process;
Where we are driven by who we are, where we belong, to give the gift we have.
Foundation can’t be built on candy.
I tried to run 100 miles.
A goal
Built on hustle.
I trained, trained, trained.
On recovery weeks, I kept burning it.
No rest for the weary.
I made it through 70.
70 miles.
The wheels fell off the bus.
I ran until I couldn’t run.
I walked until I couldn’t lift a foot.
Through the end of 2011, and throughout all of 2012, I was burning it. Hard.
High, high milage.
Weekends of back-to-back marathon distances as training runs.
Not races. Not end-goals. Training.
Pushing hard cross-training days.
Getting home late, eating a 10pm dinner,
Falling asleep while eating.
I needed that food for recovery from that day,
And for fuel for the next morning’s run.
I was pushing it.
I set this goal on 100 miles.
A noble feat to say the least –
Or at least to say something about it.
It needed to happen.
I wasn’t fully sure why,
But it needed to.
Yes, there was something magical about the ‘moments,’
‘Flow,’ and
Peace I would discover running,
Training,
Hours in nature.
But presence
Was not the main driver of this leg of my journey.
Disconnect,
Dissatisfaction,
Disarray was abound in my life.
Work was stress,
Feelings as the outsider in my friend group of nearly a decade,
And lack of knowing, understanding any sense of who I was
All permeated through the air at that time,
Though undetected by most around me.
However it works,
A goal,
An accomplishment
Turns into the thing that will
‘Fix’ it all.
The next race,
The next certification,
The next promotion.
Hustle for happiness, as it were.
I was going to ‘will’ my way
Back to happiness.
And the human will is strong.
It can make many things happen.
Drive, discipline, dedication, and duty can be built off of will.
And will, as a part of the whole,
Is essential.
But without the current of a river –
Flow,
Presence,
Connection –
Will and hustle can only get you so far.
Congruency with nature
Is the call to task.
Pushing the current,
In the attempt to carve your way
And your timing,
As if you could redirect
A timeless river,
Makes noise
And resistance
To the larger flow
You are actually in.
In certain light,
Hustle culture
Gives the appearance of strength –
But so too can toxic masculinity.
A front to what’s hidden just one layer deeper.
Any knucklehead can grunt and flex in the mirror.
But fads are like a sugar high.
Life doesn’t sustain on a Kit Kat.
You can go a bit further if you take it up a notch,
Piling more candy into the fire.
Another quick flash of light and heat.
And though it can make a huge impact,
Traject the whole thing that much further down the road,
Its pace or power is not sustainable.
If hustle and will are the sole foundation you stand on,
The ground gives way; as all sugars dissolve.
At some point,
We need to learn of the foundation we are on.
At some point,
We need to learn of the foundation we want to be on.
Is it of me?
Or
Is it who I think I should be?
Is it who people think I should be?
Am I cramming the Skittles
For some validation?
For some approval?
For some acceptance?
How much is enough?
Did I make it?
Am I in?
Do I need to do more?
Will that get me what I need?
Should something that I enjoy, have that much passion and interest in,
Really need that much consistent boost?
At what point do I question a coffee or energy drink every two hours
Before I start questioning what it is that I am needing to artificially
Fuel my day towards?
At what point should my life’s joy,
Have rhythm and balance,
No different that the simplistic routine
Of bees?
Get up,
Find the pollen,
Come home,
Make the honey,
Rest.
There isn’t a worker bee ‘hustle culture’
Where bees head back out after hours,
To gather more pollen,
To then come back home,
With the Honeycomb lit for the night shift,
So they can make more honey.
Would that then, be the bee’s best gift?
Or would they need to do more?
What I stand on dictates what I do with my gift.
At what point do we realize that we trivialize matters of life,
Reducing them down to a small game to ‘play’ and ‘win,’
At the expense of matters that actually matter,
For the sake of that quick hit?
“To give anything less than your best is to sacrifice the gift.”
-Steve Prefontaine
© Dr Adam Fujita
