Why did this happen to me?
It would be easy to ask myself that question and throw a pity party. Boo hoo. Poor me.
It could have been much worse. I could have died. Thankfully, I didn’t.
I hiked Mount Katahdin this past weekend with Beth Feraco, Ryan Kassim and some other friends.
Two miles into the hike (of roughly a 9 mile hike), I fell down a roughly 12 foot high cliff.
I was at the top of a little climb up and watching the rest of the group come up behind me. I wanted to grab a video of them climbing up, took a couple of steps back..and when I put my rear foot down, the ground gave out from underneath me.
It happened so fast. Thankfully I kept cool and thought to myself “Hands and head up” so I didn’t severely hurt myself or hit my head. I didn’t want to break my fall with my arms or land on my head.
Instead, I landed on my feet and bounced right back up.
Unfortunately, once the adrenaline wore off, I noticed I had a pretty severe gash on my knee and I was bleeding through my pants.
It was at that point I was faced with a decision. Call it a day and quit or bandage myself up and continue the hike.
Honestly – it wasn’t even a decision. I wasn’t going to let anything stop me from climbing that mountain. So, we cleaned the cut, wrapped it up, and carried on.
This absolutely made it more difficult. Have you ever hiked up and down a mountain with one good leg? Let me tell you – to date, it is the hardest thing I’ve ever done.
You know what? It’s also the most rewarding thing I’ve ever done.
If you’ve ever set a goal and accomplished that goal despite having some setbacks along the way (which is totally normal, by the way), then you know how rewarding that is.
I did a hard thing that was made immensely more difficult due to an injury. I didn’t let that stop me. I made a CHOICE to embrace the suck and make the most of it.
Pain is inevitable in life. Suffering is optional.
You always have a choice in life. You can do the easy thing when faced with adversity and ask yourself why this is happening to you? You can say “Well, I tried”, and give up. Or you can ask yourself “What can I learn from this?” and continue.
You know how growth happens? By not quitting. By doing the fucking hard thing you set out to do, no matter what.
You’ve been taking the easy way far too often in life. How has that worked out for you?
If you want to listen to the full breakdown of my Mount Katahdin hike, check out my latest podcast episode. “Cut The Crap With Beth And Matt” is available to all platforms.