What You Need to Endure

Great admiration needs to be bestowed upon those who can run the race. Whether a

A marathoner or the or an athlete in the made for television Ninja Warrior, the ability to endure and maintain presence and perseverance in competition is a characteristic that is laudable in human beings.

I have been a runner. In my twenties I found running the logical and easy way to continue my athletics career post high school and college football without a lot of equipment or cost. However as I ventured into triathlon and biathlons it got more expensive as one had to invest in a bicycle of worthy engineering and structure.

I came of age in the era where job hopping was normal. My parents could not understand at first as they were of the generation where upon graduation from high school or college one found a job and stuck with that company for thirty or forty years eventually receiving a nice pension for retirement. This was endurance. Many people stuck to the same job and sometimes the same company whether they liked it or not. This was part and parcel of the American Dream.

Today we don’t place enough emphasis on endurance in our every day lives. We probably don’t even think about it in our “gotta have it now” culture. Endurance is the the personality characteristic that get you where you want to go.

Marcus Aurelius writes :

“Everything that happens is either endurable or not

If it’s endurable, then endure it. Stop complaining

If it’s unendurable…then stop complaining. Your destruction will mean its end as well.

Just remember: you can endure anything your mind can make endurable, by treating it as in your interest to do so.

In your interest, or in your nature”

I am sure the marathoner endures when they hit the wall. They hit the wall around mile 18 to 20. While it is likely a physiological issue (depletion of glycogen), rather than a mental issue, the athlete who wants to finish the race must find a way to endure and get through. At this point the brain or subconscious must help and “will” the runner through the race.

When a writer hits the wall they call it “writers block” and to complete the sentence, paragraph or book, the must get through the what Steven Pressfield in his book “The War of Art” calls the “resistance”. Resistance is the thing that kills the creative mind and allows you to procrastinate. Endurance, is the opposite and is the ability to press forward with no regard to the emotional cravings that want to feed the ego.

Pressfield says in order to defeat the resistance, in other words to have endurance, one must embrace and love it, saying, “If you are feeling massive resistance, the good news is, it means there’s tremendous love there too. If you didn’t love the project that is terrifying you, you wouldn’t feel anything.”

Then he says face it and do the work. “When we sit down each day and do the work, more power concentrates around us…we become like a magnetized rail that attracts iron filings. ideas come, insights accrete,” says Pressfield.

Aurelius says this too when he says, “you can endure anything that your mind makes endurable, by treating it as in your interest to do so.”

Endurance comes with practice. Like yoga or meditation, endurance must be viewed as a practice. That is why one trains for a marathon or rises early to write in the morning regardless of anything else.

I carry a quote in my wallet that I saw and wrote down years ago, source unknown, that says, “Whatever life brings you, act as though it is a blessing, act as if it is rigged in your favor.”* With practice comes skill, which provides confidence and which will give you the endurance you need. But it come with a change in mindset.

“Everything is endurable or not. Stop complaining.” No one wants to hear your complaints. No one cares that someone or something has done you wrong. You are the only one who believes that and complaining won’t convince them otherwise.

Now go off and run the race. Build upon he practice of endurance.

*After a little research it turns out the quote is from the poet Rumi