Look in the Mirror for the Answer

Understanding our own faults can allow us to have more empathy towards others

For the month of July, my CrossFit gym was doing a charity fundraiser where we pledged to do 1000 miles to raise awareness for the SEALKIDS Foundation. Though it was a collective effort, I challenged myself to complete 100 miles alone in dedication to this goal. My qualifying criteria for the 100 miles was that they only counted if it was a ruck (weighted backpack) over 40 pounds, or a run under a 9 min/mile pace. I wasn’t counting my post-lunch walk around the block, or steps while walking the dog. I wanted to be intentional and deliberate when accomplishing this goal.

I want to note here as well that my normal cadence of CrossFit classes and other fitness endeavors stayed the same throughout the month. I didn’t replace any previous fitness; these 100 miles were going to be in addition to my normal fitness levels and weekend pickle-ball extravaganzas.

As much as I would like to say I was doing it for the kids, a large part of me was doing the challenge as a test of my own discipline. When I signed the form, submitted my pledge, and began asking for donations, I thought to myself, ‘When was the last time I did a sustained difficult task, activity, habit for longer than two weeks?’

To clarify, I couldn’t remember the last time I had actively sought to go against the grain mentally, physically, or socially compared to my normal status quo for an extended period of time. And going against the grain with no intention of it being a long term habit changing behavior. Someone might say going to the gym everyday is a hard task, but I don’t count that as going against the grain because it’s something that’s already a core component of my daily life, and not something that takes large amounts of activation energy for me to accomplish. Whereas if you asked me to play guitar everyday, that would be a totally foreign exercise to introduce into my 24 hours. It would take conscious thought and attention to complete the task, and it would force me to change previous time blocks in my day to adjust for this goal. As humans, it’s so easy for us to fall into a patterns and grooves on repeat, without ever really shaking them up, only to wake up 10 years later and realize we did one year on repeat for 10 years straight.

In my previous article Fiction, I talked about habits, implementing new outlooks, and leveraging protocols to achieve the change you’re looking for. This 100 mile goal was a great middle ground as far as the ‘friction’ meter rating. I have a baseline of fitness that allowed this challenge to be doable, but it was still a high volume output that would push me outside my comfort zones and demanded that I alter my daily routine to accommodate this target.

Doing the basic math, I needed to average about 3.3 miles a day to reach 100 total miles by July 31st. First day of the challenge I shot myself in the foot. It was a Monday, so I woke up and hopped on my indoor cycling bike to do my normal Zone-2 40 minute ride only to get done and realize the 100 mile challenge started that day, and I just did 40 minutes of work that wouldn’t count towards my goal but would sap my energy reservoir for the day. 3.3 miles a day is not that bad, but when you miss one day, the next day becomes 6.6 miles and now it’s a much larger mountain relative to the hill you had the day before.

I decided I would do a ‘cool down' ruck after my CrossFit class that night as to not start day two behind the eight-ball. Later in the first week of the challenge I flew out to Seattle for a 5-day vacation/wedding which caused some adjustments and ‘friction’ to my goal planning as well. Luckily I was in the great company of numerous Army guys and gals who all loved to start the day with some exercise, so I was able to fall into rank with them and get my quotas done each day during the vacation.

As I returned from the trip, I realized why 80% of New Years goals fail. Life gets in the way. Had I not been with the group of people that were enthusiastic about running, I could have made excuses, or at least logical reasons as to why I couldn’t get the miles in each day on vacation, which would have only lead to a more insurmountable mountain of miles to accomplish when I got back, forcing me to throw in the towel. “It’s not healthy for me to do all those miles now because there is a risk of injury if I do such high volume without the proper training.” “I have a CrossFit competition in August so maybe it’s best that I don’t run.” Etc.

It’s also worth noting that that 80% of failed New Years resolutions are mostly people who explicitly said or acknowledged that they had a goal they didn’t succeed in accomplishing it. That’s not accounting for everyone who had the thought that maybe they would try to be alcohol free for the year. Or make it to the gym 5 days a week. Or stay off social media till February. They just never formally created the goal, posted it on social media, or had an accountability partner involved as a defense mechanism so that the failure wouldn’t be as big of a sting. Trust me, we have all been there. Don’t lie to yourself. We suck at following through a large majority of the time. We have grandiose views of the future, only to crash and crumble when that future moment melts into the present.

This next piece wasn’t going to be part of the article, but I read it in one of my weekly newsletters the other week and felt it would slot in well here as I talk about how to actually avoid sucking at goal setting. This next blocked quote is written by Shane Parrish on his Farman Street newsletter.

When it comes to identity ... We can, especially at the outset of goal setting, be wildly ambitious about what we want to accomplish. We can have that purity complex where if we don’t abide by the rules, let’s say, of our first week or our second week and we just fall off the wagon, we think, “Okay, well, we already kind of screwed this up, so what’s the point?” That can be counterproductive.

There is research showing that when we introduce what are known as “emergency reserves,” basically “get out of jail free” cards, into the process of goal setting, we’re much more likely to stay the course and to reach those goals.

For example, let’s say I want to run 5K in however many weeks. You build in six days along the way where you don’t run for whatever reason. You got sick; you have to drop your kids off at school; you don’t feel like it; that’s okay, too. You’re bridging an empathy gap between you and your future self when you’re building in that emergency reserve. You’re acknowledging that real life is going to happen and that when I don’t run that one day, it is not a threat to this future or present identity of runner. It is an expected and pseudo-welcome part of the process because it’s a more sustainable way to achieve your goals.

For what it’s worth, I ended up finishing the 100 mile challenge in 20 days (11 ahead of schedule). At the halfway point I saw the light at the end of the tunnel and just sent it. To be transparent, I thought it would be easier to do higher volume for a few days as opposed to more days at a lower volume. I wanted to be done. Hindsight is 20-20 but I do wonder if I had built in a different mindset of say ‘doing 23 miles a week’ if that would have changed my approach, to where I would have not been so consumed each day with 3.3 miles and more just conscious that I have a weekly goal I get to chip away at throughout the week at the pace that I find applicable for that day. Food for thought with my next challenge.

As much as I hope that anecdotal account of my 100 mile month in July was entertaining, it’s really just to serve as the appetizer to the next train of thought that I’ve been wrestling with for a few months.

Back in April I was reading a book called ‘Love Life’ by Matthew Hussey, a British dating coach. I had been listening to some of the podcasts he went on as well as clips from his Youtube channel, and I really appreciated the way in which he delivered information about human behavior and emotions. His book does a phenomenal job outlining the common pitfalls we run into on our quests for love and ways to avoid toxic relationships that won’t provide us with the love we deserve.

I won’t go into the whole book, but there was one thought idea/concept that literally changed the way I viewed other people in the world. In his chapter titled, “How to Leave when You Can’t Seem to Leave,” he lists out five steps on how to separate from someone you know isn’t good for you. And the first step is labeled: Assume This Person Will Never Change.

I’m sure we have all encountered people that are either selfish, entitled, narcissistic or frankly unmotivated. We are explicitly aware of how futile our efforts can be to get them to change their behavior. But even when compassion is driving our desire to change and we have some motivation, that change still isn’t easy for us. Humans don’t get to go into the hospital and come out two hour later with a personality transplant. Not even Kim Kardashian.

Most of us will work at improving a flaw or target area with deliberate work, practice, or therapy for years and still only see marginal progress towards the desired change. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, it just highlights the difficulty humans have in implementing and sustaining behaviors that we may be inadvertently dispositioned to, for better or worse.

“Consider how hard it is to change yourself and you’ll understand what little chance you have in trying to change others.” - Jacob M. Braude

What I’m hoping to convey here, is that by looking in the mirror and doing an honest assessment of our own shortcomings, our own struggles, and our own tragic human tendencies, we can build in more empathy towards others around us. We understand just how complex it is being a human. How emotions can get the best of us. How your hormones can change our desire to pursue, into a craving for rest. How giving it our best shot, more often than not, could barely move the needle. And if we do see the change, it can take just as much work and vigilance, if not more, to maintain it.

Though we may not be narcissistic, I think it’s a human tendency at times to think you are somewhat superior to others. Or that if the general population can do something, you aren’t necessarily an outlier that would buck the trend and not be able to do said thing. We have a general outlook that “If I just fully commit and allocate resources to a general action millions of other people can do, I too could do it. But I’m focusing my energy elsewhere, that’s why I’m not able to do (you name it).” I think we tell ourselves that story more often than not because it’s easier to imagine success, than to experience pain. We may even get the dopamine hit by telling someone that we are thinking about doing a challenge, but never actually commence it.

Once you see humans as flawed individuals, you give them more empathy. Not in the sense that you are superior to them, but it just makes sense. We aren’t perfect and we ARE going to fuck up. We will cut someone off in traffic by accident. Hell, maybe even on purpose because our boss was a raging asshole all day and the only thing that’s going to bring us joy is that Tillamook ice cream in the freezer and your comfortable bed. When your order doesn’t come out right at the restaurant, it only means HUMANs were the ones responsible for your experience. Not robots. Cherish that aspect of life. Maybe we don’t want everything perfect.

We sit in traffic and curse the world as to why there is traffic. “Jesus, can’t people drive.” Actually no, they can’t. Not with this new outlook I have. Instead of getting anxious and all worked up trying to understand how the other 8 billion people in the world don’t know what a zipper merge is, I just chalk it up and say, “Wow humans can be incompetent. And that’s ok, because by definition, they are human.”

As soon as you set a lower bar and standard for your fellow homo sapiens, you paradoxically become happier and more accepting of all the imperfection that take place. You have empathy for the person trying to lose weight but is craving a cheeseburger, because at the core, you have experienced those same temptations, and have given into them, just in a different context.

I’ve seen a general trend on podcasts that I’ve listened to where the host is interviewing an author of a ‘self-help’ book. More times than not, they ask '“Why did you write this book?” and the author will respond “I wrote it for myself, because it was knowledge I was trying to implement into my own life, and figure other people with a similar problem might benefit from knowing it as well.” And they follow it up with, “And it’s still a struggle for me to adopt this make up a self help routine.” Here stands an ‘expert’ that has researched a topic, is completely conscious of the deliberate changes they are trying to make, and they still can get pulled into old habits.

When I look in the mirror I notice that I’ve researched everything about the stress response, I’m aware of the neuroendocrine activity that takes place during the stress response, I can notice my own stress response activating, and I still can’t stop it. Some things are just a result of being human.

This is not intended to be a pessimistic viewpoint of society and human life on earth. Quite the contrary, it alleviates stress, confusion, and disappointment that result from unrealistic expectations of other people. So even though Matthew Hussey wrote his chapter and book regarding lowering expectations from a romantic relationship standpoint, I quickly realized how pertinent is was for analyzing human behavior at large. Be kind. You never know the struggle someone else is going through.