What's the alternative?

The only question you need to ask yourself when you hit the wall

I was driving home from training yesterday afternoon, feeling rather beaten up- or beaten down would be a more representative expression. Physically beaten down, yes. However that is par for the course. I felt mentally beaten down as well. I was in touch with the reality that I am spreading myself too thin, in opposing directions: trying to peak my performance for my grappling competitions this month, while continuing to try and add progressive volume to my training for the 15 Peaks challenge I have taken on to complete in the Summer. I was doubting. I was doubting my ability to perform and win in my competitions. I was also doubting my ability to complete the challenge in the time we have set.

What I was doing was ‘hitting the wall’. I was reaching a point in my endurance of the endeavours I am taking on, that I was struggling to push through to keep going. There are many tactics, strategies, techniques you can employ to get you past the wall. However, as I doubted while I drove, I realised there was only one question I needed to ask myself: “what’s the alternative?”

What’s the alternative? What’s the alternative to pushing through the wall, pushing on through the adversity, through fatigue, the toil, the trial? What’s the alternative to pursuing my heart’s passions, my soul’s desires, into the unknown, into the danger? I knew what the alternative was. I had tried the alternative. This time last year I was living the alternative. I was working a job I had no passion, love or even enthusiasm for. But a job that was stable, steady, secure and well paying.

I envisaged living out this alternative to its end. Continuing to work that job, climbing the societal ladder. I would never worry for money. I would be respected by my peers- thought of as successful. My wealth and societal standing, if nothing else, would attract an attractive girl, who I got on with well enough that I could justify committing the rest of my life to her. We would have a couple of children, that would live with her, my wife, in a nice house in the suburbs of the city, while I continued working away in the office of the job I had no care for, until I one day retired and got to sit in that nice house myself, all day long, living out the remainder of my days.

This was my train of thought. That alternative may be an attractive one to many, and that is ok. But it is not an attractive one to me. The alternative to the journey I have placed myself on, to pursue my passions, to embrace uncertainty and insecurity, to push my boundaries, to find my limits, to reach my potential, with the by-products being living a life I am deeply content with, that is meaningful to me, and will allow me to build the life I want for myself and my family, is to go back to sitting behind that desk, selling my soul, going through the motions, until Father Time calls me. The alternative is never seeing, never knowing, what the universe has to offer me, what I could have done, who I could have been, what I could have made, who I could have made, what I could have shared, what I could have lived. However hard this road may feel right now, if I have no other reason to continue on it, I have the reason that I know the alternative is one I cannot stomach. So, there is not choice but to continue on, through the wall.