Why Do We Show Up and Work So Hard?

When you are young, most of your life is dictated by the adults in your life. You show up because you have to. You work hard because you're afraid of the consequences if you don't. This carries on until we've matriculated out of formal education. To an extent, we show up for jobs because we are afraid of the consequences of not having money, and then continue to try hard at those jobs because we like the security of health insurance, a 401K, a steady paycheck, that new car smell, vacations, and a nicer place to live.

Even with the paychecks, we look ourselves in the mirror at times (sometimes daily) and ask ourselves, is this worth it? Why are we doing this? What is this all for? Is this really my purpose?

I think most of us have realized that we are bigger than our jobs and what we do to make money, but I also think that most of us are still searching for our purpose and the meaning of it all. I'll be the first to admit that I spent a lot of time in my 20s and 30s buying really nice homes, cars, clothes, wine and taking myself to amazing dinners. Most of that spending, I regret. I'm forgiving of myself because I was looking for anything to distract myself from the pain of losing my mom in my early 20s. The only spending I'll never regret is my MBA and a trip to the UK that changed my life - but that's another story.

I've always been an athlete, and loved what activity did to my brain. When I was practicing and competing gymnastics, I loved the extreme focus that the sport demanded. I loved downhill skiing for the same reason - I could spend the entire day not even feeling the cold because I was so focused on form to get down the hill while navigating obstacles. Once I was in college and stepped away from gymnastics, I was left with a hole that I had a hard time filling - and then started to practice yoga. I wanted that same sensation of losing myself in activity and just giving it all in my head a damn rest for a minute. My senior year of college, after a really tough breakup that crushed my heart even though I knew it was the right thing for me and him, I started casually running around the neighborhood surrounding campus. I would carry my walkman in my hand, listen to music and get lost in moving my body forward to my favorite songs. I never kept track of how far I went, how fast I ran or how many minutes I was out for. Running was blissful.

Fast forward 3 years later, I just bought my first place, bought a nice car and was working like a beast. Probably drinking too much, but was kind of having fun when I wasn't miserable and wondering what I was doing with my life - the highs were high and the lows were low. My GI system was an absolute mess, I was having horrible mid-abdomen pain on and off, my digestion wasn't digesting, and I was struggling with fluctuating weight loss and weight gain. I was blaming it all on not having a proper routine, so when I came to work and one of my colleagues said they were training for a marathon with a group that promised a couch to marathon training plan with a group, I thought... why not? I needed to pull myself together, and this was a good a way as any.

The first several weeks were fun! We were running for miles on the weekends and minutes during the week. And then we made our way to double digits, and suddenly it went from fun to kinda hard. I am pretty positive I made every single rookie mistake to marathon training that season including but not limited to showing up hungover, going into runs underfueled, not fueling during runs, not getting adequate rest, wearing brand new things for long runs, carrying water but not drinking it, abandoning strength training and not refueling after hard efforts. Also, not enough mileage. Somehow I managed to make to the start and finish line of my first marathon and it took me 4 hours and 20 minutes, but that accomplishment made me a marathoner, and made me realize that I could do absolutely anything I set my mind to.

Over the next half decade, I'd jump into races here and there, and would bring myself through a few training cycles finishing my local marathon for fun each fall. And then someone I knew from high school and college who was a real runner showed up to town, and he offered to write me a training program for a spring marathon that I siged up for. He never talked about paces, he just assigned mileage and told me to "pick it up for a bit" toward the end. I finished the Georgia Marathon in 3:38 and qualified for the Boston Marathon - I went from showing up and finishing marathons around 4:15, to dropping my time over 30 minutes just by putting in a little more effort.

Over the years, I've developed in my career, got married, had children and pursued the outer limits of my physical abilites in this sport. I am now to the point where one of my tangible talents is running far, at a pretty respectable clip even when I don't want to and I'm miserable. I've run times that I never dreamed possible. I remember just thinking that if I could qualify for Boston twice and run that race once, I'd quit marathoning forever. But I've gotten greedy. Just last fall, I was exhausted at the start line of the New York City Marathon and was flaming pissed to run it in 3:30 - qualifying for Boston with a 15 minute cushion.

Easy runs are fun and fine, but you get faster with hard long runs and workouts. And if you have a job and kids, you're left doing these things early in the morning. Every time I go through these efforts, I think about how miserable it makes me feel. I ask myself, why am I doing this to myself? Do I hate myself that much that I treat myself this way? I always assumed that running was a distraction and a great way to bypass emotional pain that I didn't want to deal with, but showing up for a workout and a race is really something else entirely.

So why do we do this? Why do we show up to a challenging and scary class, toe the line of a race, bring ourselves through a brutal workout in crappy weather? Is it that we are searching for further meaning through hard work? Is this our mind's way of trying to burn itself out so we can finally just sit and be? Do we still not think we are good enough so we are trying to materialize proof that we are worthy of getting up every day and showing up to life?

Right now, I'm telling myself if I can finally break 3 hours in the marathon that I'll be a respectable runner. But will I? Or am I already a respectable runner? I honestly can't answer that.

Is this pursuit another chase like my pursuit of financial success in my 20s and 30s? Am I putting myself through this pain multiple times per week for hours each week doing my soul any good? I truthfully can't answer that question right now, but what I can say is that I love the structure of a program. I love the feeling of accomplishment when I'm on the other side of a workout. I love the feeling of success and personal power that is generated from doing something really hard. I love how it sharpens off my personal edges and makes me less angry and agitated. I do like how it keeps my head in the game of corporate life, and without this discipline, I fear that I'll lose discipline and motivation in other areas of my life. Perhaps it's the glue that holds my life together in many ways - or maybe it's not.

I'm not quite in the place where I'm willing to find out yet. I think I'm enjoying the journey of where this sport is taking my mind, body and emotions. This exploration has been fascinating, and I still have things to find in this wild forest. And maybe that's enough for now.