The last couple days have been long run kinds of days. The baby did not take his naps on Monday, which left me totally exhausted and frazzled. I went to bed at 8:15. It's not like he's all that demanding when he's awake, but I need those little breaks! Yesterday was better, just really busy. I know that I'm supposed to be "enjoying every minute" while I have a baby, but some days seem less like a walk in the park and more like a hike up a mountain.
If you've ever done a tough hike, you know how you get to a point where you see nothing, you feel nothing, you think nothing--you just put one foot in front of the next, hoping that something will happen, whether it is reaching the peak or just falling over.
Some days are easy. Other days are a marathon. You just keep putting one foot in front of the next. It's nice to look at the bigger questions in life like purpose and meaning, but I suspect that not a few mountain climbers have thought at some point, "Why did I want to do this?" On the long, tedious journey, purpose and meaning often fade away in the face of sore feet, burning muscles, blisters, exhaustion, and hunger.
One of the best books on leadership I have read is called Leading at the Edge: Leadership Lessons from the Extraordinary Saga of Shackleton's Antarctic Expedition, written by Dennis Perkins. The author's "leadership lessons" were pretty good, but the part that will never leave me was the story of Ernest Shackleton.
His attempt to cross Antarctica in 1914 met with disaster when his ship was crushed in the ice. I cannot imagine the feeling of sitting at the bottom of the world watching the only thing that could possibly get you home slowly crack and then sink into the water as the ice closed around it.
His crew camped out on ice floes for the next six months. Again, I cannot imagine spending six months camped on ice, seeing nothing but various shades of white, gray, and black.
You can read the whole story of Shackleton's voyage in Perkins' book or on Wikipedia. I don't want to spoil the ending because Shackleton met with impossible obstacles at every stage of the journey, and the way he moved forward is riveting.
Shackleton's leadership throughout the ordeal was incredible. He never lost focus of what he wanted to accomplish. He never resorted to self-preservation at the expense of his crew. In fact, at one point, he gave his gloves to a crew member, which resulted in the loss of some of his fingers to frostbite. He never gave up. He sat on that piece of ice in the middle of the most brutal part of the ocean in the world and kept planning and hoping and moving forward.
My day without a baby nap pales in comparison to the endless days Shackleton and his crew spent sitting on a frozen bit of the Atlantic Ocean. If they can survive with purpose and hope, so can I. After all, it is a long obedience in the same direction that makes life worth living, even though it might not seem very exciting or fun sometimes.
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| Contemplating the journey |
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