Smiling in the Face of Adversity

Dostoevsky came to this same conclusion: “Happiness does not lie in happiness, but in the achievement of it."

But can there ever really be genuine achievement without adversity?  It seems to me that while adversity is not necessarily a prerequisite of achievement, it undoubtedly enhances it.  Just look at the Paralympics: many would argue that while absolute performance is significantly ‘better’ in the able-bodied Games, it is the Paralympic athletes’ feats that represent the greater achievement. 

“Nothing,” agreed former US President Roosevelt, “in the world is worth doing unless it means effort, pain, difficulty...”

There is no achievement without adversity.

But this seems paradoxical.  Achievement engenders happiness, but simultaneously necessitates pain.  Can we really enjoy our anguish and smile through our suffering?

I complain a lot.  About the amount of training I have to do, and about how tired I subsequently feel.  About how hard it all is.  But maybe I should be embracing it.  Because the harder I find it, the greater my achievement.

And, as another US President famously said:

“We choose to go to the moon and do the other things not because they are easy, but because they are hard.”

 

Cycling: 64.6 miles                                            Running: 7 miles                                           Swimming: 150 mins

 

Happy Next Year?

Each Monday my school announces a new theme for the week.  Last week’s was happiness.

Despite being aimed at the kids, it also got me thinking.  Am I happy?  And how can I make myself more happy? But first and foremost, what is happiness?.

It turns out to be an elusive concept.

Aristotle argued that happiness is “the meaning and purpose of life”.  I disagree entirely.  I believe that the meaning and purpose of life is happiness. 

‘But that’s just the same!’ I hear you cry.  Well, mathematically speaking, perhaps, but semantically it matters which comes first. (I will leave a discussion on the commutative nature of equivalence in language until later).  In Aristotle’s philosophy, happiness should be the aim of all life.  But such a hazily defined goal is simply a mirage that can never be reached. 

Switching it round, I believe that the purpose of life must be defined first, and it is in achievement of this purpose that happiness lies.  

Once again, however, we are confronted by a term that defies definition: purpose.  What is the meaning of life?  Is there even a universal, objective answer?  It turns out it doesn’t matter...

We can circumvent the entire issue of purpose by simply eliminating it.  This leaves us with:

                It is in achievement that happiness is found.

Henry Ford, founder of the famous car company, would agree:

                ‘There is no happiness except in the realization that we have accomplished something.’

So, presumably, next year I will be happy?

Cycling: 22.2 miles                                     Running: 31.8 miles                                     Swimming: 75 mins

Happy New Year...

Nothing motivates like fear. 

Meeting the men in whose footsteps I will follow brought home the magnitude of my challenge: without exaggeration, the Arch to Arc could kill me.

But an even greater fear grips me.  The fear of failure. 

There is a very real possibility that I will not make it to France.  Being a Maths teacher I like to quantify things, and I would rate my chances as 50%.  Optimistically.  Should I fall short, the list of people I let down will make difficult reading: myself, my friends, my family and my pupils, not to mention the charities for whom I have pledged to raise money.  I’m not sure I could bear it.

To ensure this does not – can not – happen, my training needs to step up a notch.  And as difficult as it has already been, it is only going to get harder.  So hard, in fact, that on those cold, dark, wet mornings, fear alone – pitiless motivator as it is – may not be enough.

So each week, I will be posting my training totals in this blog, visible for the world to see.  Any session missed or curtailed will no longer be accompanied simply by a fleeting feeling of guilt but an accountability that I hope will be enough to force me out of the door and into the cold.

Cycling: 44 miles                                          Running: 18.2 miles                                   Swimming: 345 mins

Terror Firma

“We must walk consciously only part way toward our goal, and then leap in the dark to our success” – Henry Thoreau

I spoke too soon.

With my now application accepted I arranged to meet the Arch to Arc team.  They invited me to an awards ceremony for all those ‘Enduromen’ (and women) who had undertaken challenges in 2012.  It was an occasion of contrasts.

Over the summer two men had attempted the Arch to Arc within weeks of each other.  Both were phenomenal athletes, and particularly strong swimmers; both had decided to forego the wetsuit (allowed in the Arch to Arc but not normally permitted for a channel crossing); and both had the world record – a marker that had stood since the very first Arch to Arc 10 years earlier – in their sights. 

The first contender set out in perfect conditions, arrived at a placid sea, crossed uneventfully and rode into Paris, smashing the long-standing record.  The second had a markedly different experience.

The sea temperature had dropped dramatically following weeks of bad weather, and the only reprieve (when a crossing could even be considered) came in the middle of the night.  The air and the water were cold.  Maliciously, mercilessly, bone-chillingly cold.

Just past halfway it got too much.  Displaying unbelievable drive and determination, this incredible man swam until he blacked out.  His body disappeared beneath the waves and had to be dragged out, unconscious.  Despite not making the Arc, it was this man’s bravery that struck me most.

That, and terror. 

I left this ‘celebratory’ occasion with an icy feeling of foreboding and the words of the organisers ringing in my ears: “There is no way to cheat your way through”.

It’s time to start serious training: it could be the difference between life and death.

Goal Posts

“Setting a goal is not the main thing.  It is deciding how you will go about achieving it and sticking with that plan.” - Tom Landry

To ensure that effort is sustained and progress maintained the pupils and I set ourselves interim targets.  Mine read as follows:

1.       Cycle 140 miles in a day
2.       Swim 4 hours in a day
3.       Run 10K in under 40 minutes
4.       Run a half marathon in under 1 hour 25 minutes

By Christmas I had achieved all of these.  It seems, and I say this tentatively, that I am on track...

Launch

“Glory lies in the attempt to reach one's goal and not in reaching it” – Mahatma Ghandi

In my school pupils in their third year complete a ‘Year 9 Award’.  This is a recent initiative introduced to plug the gap between Key Stage 3 and Key Stage 4: it ensures that a year which, since the abolition of the SATs exams, would otherwise be somewhat vacuous, still produces something constructive.

Part of the Award is an Independent Project.  Undertaken over the course of the whole year, the project encourages pupils to choose a particular area of interest and to stretch themselves, with the ultimate goal of completing a piece of work of which they can be genuinely proud.  This neatly parallels my own challenge.

And so, this year, I will be offering support and guidance to these pupils, using my own challenge as a model that they can follow.  While my travails will not change the world, I hope that my example might encourage and inspire some of the pupils to achieve beyond what they would otherwise have dreamed possible.

I launched my project in a talk to the yeargroup.  I spoke about my skiing accident, recovery and Ironman.  I introduced the Arch to Arc.  Finally I explained that I was not in any way confident of completing it.  But therein lay the challenge: for true success, I said, lies not in outcomes but in effort.

Out of the Frying Pan, into the Sea

“If you're trying to achieve, there will be roadblocks” Michael Jordan

As they are wont to do, a roadblock appeared and blocked my path.  An obstacle larger than the Arch to Arc; a barrier wider even than the channel.

I mentioned that only 10 people have completed this challenge.  Just 10.  And so it came as some surprise when I went on the website only to find the event fully booked.  For 3 years.

George Weinberg wrote that “the cure for most obstacles is being decisive”.  I have experience the converse: indecision has been the cause of my own obstacles.  First it happened with the Ironman.  And now, again, with the Arch to Arc.  My fear of failure delayed my registration and the window of entry – of opportunity – slammed shut.

The discovery took the wind out of sails.  My training, which had started enthustically and energetically, became a chore.  Unsurprisingly, the volume began to plummet.  I didn’t swim for a month.  Perhaps, I thought, fate was telling me not to be so stupid...

But I didn’t completely give up.  I did everything I could to find a way over, around, under the roadblock.  I enquired about organising the challenge myself.  I got in touch with the Navy.  No luck.  I eventually swallowed my pride and pleaded with the company.  They said they’d “see what they could do”.  It didn’t look promising.  In fact it looked pretty bleak.

But then a glimmer of light: a sliver of hope.  They might be able to help, they said.  “We’ll let you know”.

I waited with baited breath.  Days passed.  Weeks passed. And then an email: “Enduroman are willing to confirm that time is available for you to attempt a solo Enduroman Arch to Arc”.  I was delighted.  And terrified.

Suddenly it was real.  Suddenly I had to decide.  Well, what could I do?

This Summer I will be attempting to join those 10 men and women who have completed the Arch to Arc.

Back

“Every new beginning comes from some other beginning's end” – Seneca

I am sorry for the long silence.  I have been busy...

This blog started with the opening of the Olympics.  Then, as the Paralympics drew to a close, the Greatest Show on Earth rolled out of town for another 4 years. 

London returned to normal.  The towering triangular spotlights that illuminated our lives were dimmed for the final time and the Gamesmakers neatly folded and put away their distinctive purple livery.  As kids swapped their Team GB replica kits for school uniforms, the flame that had burned so brightly went out.

And as the kids went back to school, so did I – as a teacher in a central London school, I spend each day attempting to infuse young minds with the mysteries and delights of Mathematics.  This puts me right on the front line: direct access to the generation that Seb Coe and his LOCOG team pledged to inspire. 

Unfortunately, and all too quickly, the Olympic glow has faded to a mere fond memory.  Legacy is a poorly defined term, but initial evidence seems to suggest that the change the Games have actually effected is minimal.  The Games did inspire people but the fiery passion it aroused died out with the flame.   

This was disappointing but inevitable: to secure a lasting impact, the fire must be stoked, and for this individuals must take responsibility.  I hope that my challenge might allow me to be one of these people.