I finished a book not to long ago called, "Swimming to Antarctica", it is the story of Lynne Cox. Lynne is a professional swimmer and has made a career out of swimming places no normal human being would ever want to swim i.e. The Nile River, The Bering Strait (for those of you not up on your geography skills, that's the area of sea betwen Alaska and Russia, 38 degree water, breaking through ice chunks...), Cape of Good Hope and so on and so forth. After swimming and setting time and first attempt records all over the world, Lynne set her sights on Antarctica. It takes her years to condition her mind and body to be able to swim in 34 degree water for a sustained amount of time, acquire support, sponsorship and a team willing to accompany her.
I won't give away the ending for those of you curious enough to pick the book up, but it left me pondering a few things in this head of mine. Have I ever wanted something that bad? Is there something worth years of training, toil, sweat and tears? Would I have the ability and motivation to sustain the effort? Is there something worth going down fighting for? And what cost to my friends and family? What's my Antartica?
I am charmed my the idea of running the Boston Marathon, completing an Ironman Triathlon, there are even times I have fancied climbing Mt. Everest. But would I maintain years of effort to accomplish these things? I don't know.
I then wonder if the ability to sustain such an effort is an intrinsic quality, a charcteristic we either born with or we're not. Or can it be a learned behavior, can we teach ourselves to be motivated, ambitious and driven?
I like to think that we all have an Antarctica in a sense, it might not be as grandiose or outlandish as swimming around icebergs, but certainly we all have something that we continue to strive for. Something to add to our purpose, our legacy and our life adventure.
I feel fairly confident I have an Antarctica, I'm just still deciding what I want it to be...
2 comments:
I really liked this one Kate. I think we all have our own antarctica's as well, but I think what we are individually capable of determines how big it might be. For some who have many physical or emotional ailments, simply getting out of bed and facing the day might be their antarctica. Thankfully, ours would be bigger. I think the easy examples are physical challenges, but our antarcticas could come in any form. This was a great thought-provoking post.
Mmmmm.... very good food for thought! My first instinct was to think... there is NO way I have in me the motivation, determination or grandiose (sp?) desire to do anything or achieve anything like that!!... But like Amberly said, for everyone it's different. I guess things that I set out to accomplish might seem silly to others and their's to me... it's all individual.
Thanks for the wise tid-bits. You read some interesting stuff!!
-Hillary
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