Three times a week, I drag myself out of bed before dawn to swim with my local Masters team.

It's hard.

Hard to get up and go that early, especially when it’s cold and dark outside. Hard to jump into a cold pool when I’m feeling stiff and tired.  And hard to do workouts that push me to the edge of what I can physically and mentally tolerate.

So why do I keep doing it? Because I feel fantastic afterward. 

And yet, the temptation to crawl back into my warm cozy bed after turning off the alarm never goes away. 

After ten days of camping in our house with no power, water, or internet thanks to Hurricane Helene, my wife and I jumped at the chance to spend a few days squatting in a friend’s house that had all these modern conveniences.

We were painfully aware of how privileged we were to have this refuge during the day, and a home to return to at night.

One of my favorite essays is “Thinking Like a Mountain” by the pioneering ecologist and environmental philosopher Aldo Leopold. 

The essay is best known for a pivotal moment Leopold describes from his younger days, when he enthusiastically participated in wolf eradication programs.

Watching a wolf he had shot die, he writes:

“We reached the old wolf in time to watch a fierce green fire dying in her eyes…”

How often have you said, “I’m looking forward to it,” but not actually meant it?

How much of your life have you just endured?

I recently had an occasion to look back over my life as a whole, and my answers to those questions were sobering.

Resets and quick fixes rarely create lasting change. Here’s what does.

When I asked Stephanie, a successful entrepreneur from New York City, what brought her to the wellness resort in the Appalachian mountains where I was working, she shrugged and said, “I just needed a reset.”

I wasn’t surprised. That’s what 95% of the other guests said too. 

I hope and trust that deep down in your soul, some part of you knows that despite how you may sometimes think and act and feel, the truth is you are actually a good person who is eminently worthy of and deserves love and compassion.

The challenge is to go from this often buried and neglected truth to actually thinking and feeling and living it.