Do Hard Things.
When I was young, I wanted a life of comfort. I worked hard so I could relax, do nothing, and be comfortable. Somewhere along the line, that changed to wanting to be UNcomfortable.
My great Aunt Romie died at 96. My wife’s great Aunt Miriam died at 103. Both had the same philosophy about living longer:
Never stop; never sit down.
They took away Miriam’s driver’s license when she was 99. She kept her car, and never had an accident.
Now I embrace doing hard things.
Earlier, I shared about how we knew going into the first weekend of Georgia State Defense Force Search & Rescue (SAR) training, we had to have 61 gear items, all in working order, stored in our pack so we could get to it.
Last weekend for the 2nd of 6 SAR training weekends, I joined 14 of my fellow state guard soldiers in the north Georgia mountains.
The focus of the weekend’s training was land navigation. Our focus was staying warm.
I can now say I’ve slept in a tent in 20°F weather. Not on my bucket list.
As we were complaining about that, between chattering teeth, someone reminded us that we woke up on Saturday, Dec 7, Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day. Then she said, “How cold was it in Bastogne?”
Oof. No more griping. We had proper gear, tents, access to a fireplace. I had a fresh cup of coffee.
Shut up, SSG Sandlin! Hooah.
So, once again we chose to embrace the suck. Put on our gear, and get moving to first formation, PT, and into the woods to find those cards. In the picture, you’ll see a couple of playing cards hidden (ok, “placed”) at certain 8-digit coordinates by the Cadre. Our assignment was to use our maps, compasses, protractors, and knowledge to find these cards somewhere in a few hundred acres of woods.
We were randomly divided into teams of three. That was the second challenge. Who’s good at navigation, pace count, radio, scribe, decision making? You need all of these to find the objective.
The advice that was handed down was this: “do what you suck at.” In other words, if you are totally lacking confidence in your ability to properly communicate via shortwave radio, pick up the radio and use it.
Do what is hard for YOU. If you suck at keeping a pace count and communicating distance, volunteer to do the pace count. And if you suck at reading a map, pick up the map, compass, and protractor and get on it.
Do what is hard for YOU.
Our teammates have just as many weaknesses. THAT’S why we’re IN class, and not teaching it (yet).
Our team found 2 cards. The “winning” team found 4. They earned the comfort of getting to sleep all night, rather than getting up and doing their hour of fire watch over the camp.
They earned it.
The rest of us did the other hard thing of getting up at 3AM in the 20°F dark, walking the parking lot and tending the fire, and then trying to go back to sleep at 4AM knowing we had to get up in 2 hours.
After this weekend, I *know* I can do it.
That made my Monday AM presentation all that much easier.
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