Thanks for joining me for another edition of the SerenityThroughSweat blog. I was recently listening to an episode of the human performance outliers podcast (HPO) with arctic explorer, Akshay Nanavati. He said shared some powerful advice that I wanted to explore and pass along to you.
Akshay has already tackled some incredible feats in his exploration career, and is getting ready for his biggest one yet. Before he was an endursnce athlete and an explorer Akshay served as a marine in Iraq.
After leaving the service he found ultra running and transitioned form their into arctic exploration type endurance challenges.
Clearly, this man knows a thing or two about going to the pain cave. About how to be comfortable there, and how to come out without the physical, mental, or emotional scaring that so often accompanies those visits.
He was speaking with host Zach Bitter about his preparations for the first attempt at a solo crossing of Antarctica without a kite.
He is hoping to complete the project in 110 days. That is longer than the support staff for Antarctica explorations normally stays there. The exploration “season” is normally 90 ish days.
So Ashkay will carry everything he needs to survive alone in Antarctica, and drag it on a sled across the continent by himself for almost four months.
Four months or solitude, and empty white nothingness. Accompanied by dragging a 400lb sled 15ish miles a day before making camp in a hellish climate and landscape.
Ashkay talked about how he is preparing for this epic adventure, both physically and mentally. One of the things he talked about was deliberate marking and repressing of memories.
Memories are tricky things. Sometimes we remember what we want to. So.etimes we remember only the most vivid or explosion or emotional part of a much fuller experience.
Ashkay talked about deliberately branding memories. Making a point to bookmark events as they were happening so that he could lean on them at a later date.
He went on to describe a particularly challenging night of arctic camping. How he was not enjoying himself, feeling the self doubt creeping in, but decided instead, to mark the memory as one he could look back on with a positive mindset on his upcoming expedition.
It reminded me of cleaning airplanes…
Before I started flying private planes I was working as a flight instructor and got a job at a charter company cleaning and fueling airplanes, and generally helping out with whatever else I could. This was in the hopes that at some point I would be able to fly the same airplanes I was polishing and vacuuming.
Right around the same time, (late 2000’s), Darius Rucker, formerly of Hootie and the blowfish, was blowing up in a solo country singer spot. His number one song that year was “history in the making”
“This could be, one of those memories, we want to hold on to, and cling to, the one we can’t forget”
The song would be all over the radio that played in the hangar while I was working. Often late at night after all the flights had returned for the day. His deep southern drawl would draw you in, but with just enough rough edges to make you feel like he could be sweeping the hanger floor and dripping sweat while cleaning an airplane bathroom with you.
I remember those night, all alone in the hangar, drenched in sweat with planes left to clean, thinking, this is a memory I will look back on. This isn’t fun in and of itself, but it is important. It is helping me to get where I want to go, and do the things I ultimately want to do.
Like Ashkay and Darius so eloquently say, those memories, even of an insignificant or less than pleasant event, can be bookmarked and returned to as a source of pleasure, pride, and motivation.
It is hard enough to just be present. It is even harder to be present in a difficult moment. Harder still to earmark that moment as something to look back on fondly.
Difficulty is not without its rewards. There is serenity to be found in the challenge. What history are you making? Will you be present to bookmark it appropriately and revist it?
Thanks for joining me, stay safe and stay sweaty my friends.
