Pain Is Honest
I may sound like a middle schooler who just went through a breakup at recess, but it’s true.
The sun was greeting me rather harshly from on high. As we walked alongside the creek that would act as a way point for our journey, the sun's hellish waves were gradually becoming less and less welcome.
The creek was reliable, but our increasingly agitated joints were beginning to leave us questioning how trustworthy it was. Two hours had passed since we were left to fend for ourselves for the next fifty or so hours and the path we had chosen had yet to reward our motivation to reach our destination, the Santa Ana River.
“Just one more bend, and we should be there.” a trusted friend remarks. An apprehensive joy intertwined with his affirmation left me a little uneasy.
Suddenly, just beyond our sight, the rushing waters of the river echoed through the canyon we had spent the last several hours in.
Picking up the pace, we slid and scrambled our way through to the bottom to discover… a twenty-five foot drop off.
“Unless we plan to break every bone in our body, I don’t think we’ll be making it down through here.”
A palpable disappointment filled my lungs.
Well, shit.
Mother nature’s embrace is a lot less motherly when the sun is beating down on your pale skin while you hack through fallen trees and shrubbery to meet a destination unknown. To call the moment we discovered that we had essentially wasted that time a disappointment is a massive understatement. We were sore, hungry, and burnt. We had to turn right back around and return to the start of our journey to plan our next move.
This theme followed us for the remainder of the trip. Expectation after expectation was shattered as we moved forward. Certainty has no place in the heart of a wanderer and has no part in an adventure. You can never be entirely sure of what waits for you beyond the bend. You may hear the rushing sounds of water calling to you, the indicator of a reward for the pain you have endured. That reward may have been the very reason for your journey in the first place.
However, your path has a plan of its own.
In old sayings like “It’s not about where you go, but how you get there”, we find the essence of what journeys and adventures are all about. In the aching joints that never ceased their plea for rest, I found myself. My unadulterated, pure self. The one stripped of all worries for the future, the version that existed in the moment entirely. The words, “Tomorrow has enough worries of its own”, are put into crystal clear focus when the only thing on your mind is food, sleep, and taking a sip of whiskey to take the edge off.
We are not our expectations. We are not our successes. We are not our failures.
What we are is an amalgamation of all the decisions we made prior to, and in response to, these things.
The questions we carried into the trip were numerous. What sort of things will I learn from this? Will roughing it for a few days without access to any of the comforts I have at home change me in any way? What will it be like to take a shit between two rocks? Unfortunately, none of these questions and the presumptions carried with them would be answered the way I expected. (With exception to the last one. Answer: It sucks.)
There’s nothing inherently wrong with having a set of expectations when taking up something new to you. The problem comes in expecting these questions to be answered in a way that you predetermined they would be. Quite frankly, all the previous wonderment's I had were given a clear answer. What I neglected to realize was that I would need to get uncomfortable, rip a tree in half with an ax, and hike through blistering heat and spider webs for six and a half hours to earn these answers.
Growth and self-realization only occur to those who are willing to earn them. There is no growth in comfort. Sitting behind a computer screen mindlessly refreshing Reddit or YouTube may be enjoyable for a time, but these actions are little more than a waste of time if indulged too much. The comforts of home are to be enjoyed as a luxury, as the respite and reward to a day of betterment away from the security of your gaming chair.
If you expect to grow within the confines of comfort, you can expect to be disappointed. Though the trip was only a few days, it is one I hold with high regard and look forward to taking again in the near future. The pain of traveling for miles on foot with few resources under a relentless sun was well worth the treasures found in finding myself in the misery. No computer screen or digital accomplishment can hold a candle to the moments of self-discovery made in the throes of discomfort.
Screens may lie, but pain is honest.
