Misery Loves Company

I Ran the fourth race in my challenge this past weekend: the Devil's Lake Sprint Distance Triathlon. This one was a bit different, I decided to challenge my friend Dan to race it with me. I wanted to be the inspiration for someone else in the same vein that others have been an inspiration for me. For months Dan had been running, biking, and swimming to get ready for the race, his own challenge since he had not been doing those things in quite some time. The weather was awful. It was only 50 degrees, chilly and cloudy. When we started the bike, the freezing rain began. Dan struggled up the hills and I started shivering. By the time we started the run, neither of us could feel our feet. There wasn't much to do except keep each other going and laugh at our own misery. All of the silly details of a race, the gear, the water, the nutrition, the course, the timing fell away. Everything distilled down to two buddies making the most of an awful situation. Dan finished the course in record time.

I left that day with two thoughts. The first is that misery loves company. Not in the snide way that when you are feeling miserable, you feel less miserable if someone else is miserable too. Rather, when the chips are down, impossible tasks seem less impossible when you have someone who understands your burden.

The second is that often times it is not enough to achieve. In a few short weeks, I will run the marathon and this challenge will be over. I will have accomplished more physically then I ever have before. I will have raised money for a wonderful charity. But where do I go from there? I could create bigger challenges for myself, raise more money, and quite possibly those who see me do these things will be inspired. But perhaps what we need to do in this world is to give others the tools to achieve. To show them that they too can be more than themselves. Only then will a legacy continue.

This post is dedicated to the friends and allies who go out of their way to make impossible days for bullied kids feel less impossible; who weather those storms with them. It is dedicated to those friends and allies who inspire bullied kids to look outside themselves and actually remind them that they too can be more than what they think. It is dedicated to those friends and allies who light the fire for others in hopes that one by one, little by little, this world will be a brighter place.