Taming the Beast

Resistance has been a beast in my life lately.

Thank God for camping.

What’s camping got to do with resistance?

I’ll take a stab.

I never sleep all that well when I camp — especially the first night.

This past Saturday was no different.

With a three-day weekend, I took our older son camping.

While he lay asleep curled up in his sleeping bag next to me all night, I tossed and turned — in and out of sleep from 10pm until 4am.

By 4am, I was ready to give up as I knew the sun wouldn’t be too far behind me.

But then the thoughts of the to-dos started piling up:

Open my sleeping bag and expose my body to the 40 degree temperatures.

Find my shirt and shorts and get dressed in the tent.

Walk to my backpack and dig out warmer clothes.

Hike down the hill to get firewood.

Start a fire.

Make coffee.

For an hour I laid there resisting everything I had to do.

For an hour I wrestled with this beast.

Paralyzed.

Thank God for camping — because here’s what I realized:

As I was walking down the hill to the firewood pile to start sawing wood for our fire, it dawned on me that it’s thefear of the hard — not the hard — that’s hard.

Because all I really had to do was start.

The instant I made the decision to pull the zipper down on my sleeping bag, everything simply cascaded forward from there.

The cold wasn’t as cold as I had made it out to be.

Getting dressed in the tent wasn’t as tedious as I’d imagined.

Making the exposed trek to my backpack to find warmer clothes was nothing.

Sawing and gathering the firewood was a fun challenge.

Starting the fire provided a sense of accomplishment.

And that first sip of coffee in front of the fire while the sun was coming up reflecting off the dew on the tall grass was bliss.

“We suffer more in imagination than in reality.”

Damn you, Seneca! Why do you always have to be right?!

As far as this beast in my life lately—I guess the same applies:

Just start.

Because it’s the fear of the hard—not the hard—that’s hard.

Onward.