Is this what I want to be? This? Is this all I’ve got—is this everything I can give? Is this going to be my life? Do I accept that? Ask yourself those questions, those hard questions and then answer them, truthfully.
Jocko Willink, Discipline Equals Freedom
As soon as I realized, dimly, that infinity existed, the game was over.
Infinity in my life, I mean. Experiences that were possible. Achievements. Emotions. Awakenings.
No, I don’t mean real infinity. That’s a mathematical abstraction to me. I mean practical infinity: infinity in the sense that it is impossible for me to ever conceive of the possibility of reaching a spiritual, intellectual, human limit. My life is truly a horizon.
Now that I know this to be true, how can I stop?
I am not the man I am right now. I am so much more than that. There is no limit to more.
Yes, there is a limit to more in some physical realms. That’s not what I’m talking about. For instance, I had two days back to back of 10K runs. My leg muscles feel a little worse than normal. That doesn’t mean I reached a physical limit.
What I have reached is a vision that somewhere on a distant horizon there is a physical point where my brain will rebel. Maybe that’s today. It will tell me to walk, not run.
And I will run anyways.
There is so much more on the far side of running through that moment when the brain says “take it easy” in any one of a dozen seductive ways.
Once you have opened the door, just a sliver, and seen the sunlight outside, you cannot fail to yearn for freedom. You may slam the door shut again, immediately. But you know you opened the door yourself, before. You know you can open it yourself, again.
To live as a man means you must open your own door and walk through it into the sunlight. The first step, into the light, is the hardest.
And once you are bathed in sunlight, the horizon will beckon. Run towards freedom with everything you have. Always.