Learning through pain and hard lessons

Pax:  Rafiki, Napalm, Chitwood, Aruba, Cap’n D, Scout, Meat Sweats, Mandela, Squeegee, Striker, & Poacher

Warmup

• Mucho Chesto (Thanks to Cap’n D’s tardiness)
• Windmills
• Imperial Walkers
• Arm Circles

Beat Down & Down Painment (>20 lb coupons (BYOD – Bring Your Own Dread), life’s about choices)

• Boxtrot with coupon to playground; 4x rounds of 10 of each, 1x round of 9 each, round out with burpees
  • 49x pull-ups
  • 49x Merkins
  • 49x squats
  • 49x step ups
  • 49x LBCs
  • 10x burpees
• Boxtrot with coupon to corner; 4x rounds of 10 of each, 1x round of 9 each, round out with burpees
  • 49x coupon swings
  • 49x lunges
  • 49x coupon presses
  • 49x flutter kicks
  • 49x coupon chest press
  • 10x burpees
• Boxtrot with coupon to corner; 4x rounds of 10 of each, 1x round of 9 each, round out with burpees (Time ran out)
  • 30x upright rows with coupon
  • 30x shoulder taps
  • 30x Freddie Mercuries
  • 30x Merkins
  • 30x leg raises
  • 29x burpees

Announcements: Aug 25^th Wrangler Q occurs at Southern Pines United Methodist Church (SPUMC) at 5:30 am for a F3Sandhills anniversary Q. Men’s fraternity starts back up again in September. F3 Albermarle Truebadors will come to workout with F3Sandhills on Sep 17^th.

Prayer: Aruba led us out in prayer. Praying for Scout’s mother-in-law and all of the students returning to school.

Moleskine: The M and I recently took Sub Zero back to college after some incredible time together over the summer. Why is it that our 2.0’s seem to become really interesting and we actually enjoy spending time with them after the challenging teenage years, only to have them fly the coop? The answer really lies in learning hard lessons through pain.

A wise mentor once highlighted that we learn the most memorable and important lessons through the greatest pain and failure, not through feel good experiences. Scars and tattoos, not birthday cake and bubblegum. (OK, he might have used a different term for the second part of the previous sentence, but I don’t want Waldorf to kick me off of GroupMe). This mentor was absolutely right. I have no recollection of my birthday cake on my 5^th birthday, but I have a vivid memory of placing my hand on the stove and never did that deliberately again!

As we grow older, the failures and hard lessons tend to become more pronounced. Sometimes, they are riskier, sometimes not, but the most powerful and memorable lessons that shape us continue to derive from our most significant challenges. I found this especially true during my training and time in the Army’s special operations, where individuals and the team strove for perfection, knowing they would fall short every time. Training was extremely challenging – physically and mentally. That training contributed to success, though rarely perfect, on the battlefield. Operational planning and execution appeared much easier than the training we performed.

In training and real world operations over my military career, I remember very few missions or days, where everything went well or mundane. I remember vividly those events and missions, where it did not go well, we failed or fell short. Through resilience and agility, we rapidly overcame shortcomings and salvaged what we could to achieve some modicum of success.

As I monitored Sub Zero’s progress and shortcomings during his first year on his own, (though he had a clear backstop while at college), I observed the same basic pattern, where he made some choices that had negative consequences and he learned. Luckily, he has generally good judgment and his choices did not result in any type of catastrophic life-altering failure. Essentially, the outcome was exactly what we might want for our kids and for ourselves. Come up short, learn from those failures, adjust with agility based on sound judgment, and press forward to the next challenge, while not repeating the mistakes from those same hard-won lessons learned. We learn the exact same pattern of experience, correction, and progression from stories in the Hebrew Scriptures, specifically the stories of David that we review at MoD. This pattern is inevitable in the human condition. To avoid such a pattern denies our very humanity.

So, as I notified the pax to bring a coupon to today’s Q >20 lbs, this presents another lesson that life is about choices. Some might bring coupons much greater than 20 lbs and learn those hard lessons.

Great job today men! Tough, hard training.