Well, I’m 90% over my cold, but still not 100%. I haven’t exercised in a week, and I’m just taking it one day at a time. All said, I’ve gotten through it fairly quickly. Okay back to what this post is really about:

I think much like marathon training, it matters to spend most of your “training” time on life’s challenges by building endurance at a comfortable, conversational pace as you develop excellence, or even improve at something, with whatever you’re doing. It could be your new job, improving at a work assignment, joining a meeting, building emotional intelligence in your closest relationships.

Marathon training tears up your muscles and rebuilds in small, consistent ways that are easy to recover from, over many months. Doing so also helps you get stronger for when you attempt faster, more intense, grueling runs, like the metaphorical 5K races. I realized this last year when I completed my first marathon last October. I could not have finished 26.2 miles by just being the best Olympian relay racer sprinting 400 meters around the track. While counterintuitive, I saw first-handedly how much surprisingly faster I became when attempting “race pace” mileage in the 10K to half marathon range, by doing lots of easy, comfortable jogging between 14-22 miles at a time. It was more enjoyable, less painful, and I got much stronger (cardiovascularly and muscularly) than I would have otherwise.

I think this running metaphor is really apt for life’s struggles or failures, learning something difficult, developing additional excellence at something where you already have talent, or overcoming pain or trauma. If the intensity of struggle were figuratively assigned a 1-5 heart rate zone scale, I would also say that it matters to fail small, quickly, and often, mostly in the zone 2 range. It builds the self-esteem and endurance to keep going, when you can know and be reassured, by yourself, and others when needed, that nothing is catastrophic. The same cannot be said when it’s too late.

Too much criticism and failure happen can happen much later, when it is actually a big deal. I’ve learned that does NOT build resilience, even if it is the perception of catastrophe rather than actual catastrophe, or when it’s just anything more than minor. Overcoming lots of tiny hurdles and criticisms is what actually builds internal resilience. There’s a reason why starting a project to fix my car by myself, or reading a 1,000 page Shakespearean fiction book is too much for me, without someone holding my hand through it. Scott Galloway once said, and I’m forgetting where, that if you fail, and you fail quickly, consider it a blessing, rather than investing more capital (financial, emotional, physical, or otherwise) into something that you have to forfeit, that just is never going to work. Note to self: maybe apply the Serenity Prayer here?

Perhaps to some of you, this all sounds obvious. And if that’s you, then consider yourself very fortunate. But I think for far too many people, hundreds of millions or more, and myself included, it’s a lesson that is only starting to click in my early 30s.

I’m fortunate right now to have a boss and an individual therapist (who I meet one-on-one with regularly), who I know both like me, respect me, believe in me, and also know me. That has not always been the case before. I worked very hard up until last week, on a new weeks-long trial appraisal report for a multi-tenant retail building that I’d never done before. I did excellent work (better than I initially reassured myself). I notice that oftentimes I do slightly, and sometimes much better in just about everything than I give myself credit for. Conversely, even in things that don’t go perfectly or as planned, they usually aren’t quite as catastrophic as I often think.

Anyways, when I turned in my first and best attempt, there were a couple typos, formatting issues, and potential phrasing issues I hadn’t considered in prep. My boss started the conversation reassuring me that my hard work was great, and was nearly ready to go, but wanted to fine tune a few blind spots. I sincerely appreciated it, and the constructive “criticisms” felt well received, and I know they were done to hone my skills, and reflect professionally on our team. If anything, I’d much rather have my boss provide feedback while I’m in prep mode, rather than not say anything, and find out later during a property tax trial, when a few small oversights could matter a lot more.

I probably started thinking about all of this blog post due to my individual therapist. He even mentioned one time how me being “resistant” to some of this wasn’t even a criticism, but a healthy reflection of where my mind and body is at. Going to meetups, running clubs, and being allowed to “fail” at making new friends is a goal he’s setting that is “zone 2” equivalent for my social and rejection angst. Come to think of it, it was fucking brilliant, and something I didn’t consider. Instinctively I didn’t want to, but deep down I knew I could. And when I have gone to these meetups, it’s been so much easier than 5 or 10 years ago. Sometimes, you just don’t know how much mentally stronger you are, and how much easier it feels, until you attempt the same exact thing at 30 instead of 20 or 25.

What probably represents the upcoming metaphorical zone 3 or 4 “tempo/threshold pace” for me is in a couple of months when I will attend a volunteer orientation at the Dougy Center, which helps youth that have been through horrific trauma, such as losing both parents at 8 years old due to fentanyl overdoses type of shit. My therapist has been involved volunteering there, and it is not a place I would have ever sought out on my own. It’s not a place that would have come up on a social media targeted ad.

My current individual therapist is the best I’ve ever had, by leaps and bounds. He is a married, childfree, young and liberal black man, who has served in the military and has profound expertise, intellectually and personally, in all sorts of PTSD. He is the first person who has called me out on my bullshit in a manner that somehow feels just… I don’t know? Maybe safe, kind, and well-intentioned comes to mind. In a way that is surmountable, rather than something just outright fucked. He thinks the Dougy Center would be a good challenge for my social anxiety and rejection issues, when I’m ready, AND in baby steps, starting with the orientation. His sales pitch of this group was wholesome and compelling, to say the least.

Being around kids, especially groups of them, generally makes me very uneasy, based on my own childhood. It played likely the biggest role in me feeling a very strong aversion to ever becoming a parent (my decision journey in being voluntarily childfree, I’ll discuss in another post sometime). I’ve just always connected with adults better my whole life, even as a kid. I felt queasy at the thought of even going to the Dougy Center. But I also realized that property tax assessment, or delivering packages for Amazon Flex, while honorable, doesn’t yield the same category of emotional meaning for myself or society. The Dougy Center would also give me some sense of meaning and giving back, at a time of profound post-pandemic societal loneliness, remote work, and growing through my own personal discomfort in a very safe, and experiential setting. I think of myself as normally a very logical person, but social anxiety is so powerful via domination by emotion, even when intellectually, I know better.

I look forward to saying more on how it goes when the time comes in a couple months. But in the meantime, I’m still challenging myself with branching out, sometimes comfortably, sometimes less so (but not excruciatingly so), all with small, frequent steps, one at a time.