I was running along Waikiki Beach in Hawaii early this morning. Not on the sand...on the sidewalks and dirt trails that track the beach out towards Diamond Head. I was running barefoot, as I always do, and basking in the early morning tropical climate. Not too hot, not too cold. Not too dry, not too humid. I was surrounded by lazy palms swaying in the trade winds, rich, lush greenery and the sparking waters of the Pacific Ocean. I was beginning to understand why they call this paradise.
Beyond the strip of high rise hotels, I found myself running through a small park where a group of maybe forty or fifty people were sitting in a circle. It was an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. I couldn't help thinking, if you have to go to an AA meeting, sitting in a quaint park overlooking the green-blue waters of Mamala Bay isn't a bad place to do it.
I cut up the end of the park, crossed Kalakaua Avenue and started the loop around Kapiolani Park. I got the usual strange looks from other runners eyeing my bare feet and wondering if I'm really a runner or just a homeless bum fleeing with the scone I just stole from Starbucks. But I'm used to those looks now and the truth is, they never really bothered me even when I was new to barefoot running.
I was, though, increasingly concerned with the way the smoothly paved path was quickly becoming rough and rocky. Now, my feet have become callused and leathery since giving up the injury inducing apparatuses generally known as running shoes. That makes it fairly easy to run barefoot on paved streets and sidewalks. But the roughly paved paths and rocky trails, like the one I suddenly found myself on, still feel like I'm running on shards of hot glass. I adapted my stride- quicker, lighter foot touches, higher knees lifts-and kept going. Then I hit it. More like landed straight on top of it. A sharp edged rock the size of a fist and the shape of a table saw. I landed on what would have been the blade of the saw. A sharp, piercing pain shot through my foot. In a split second of slow motion misery I could feel the pain start at the skin, seep into the muscles of the foot and pinch my blood vessels. Then, like the venom of a snake bite, it shot up a nerve into my calf, knee and thigh. In the same split second, I noticed my foot do what every barefoot runner knows it should. It instinctively folded around the sharp edge of the rock and rolled, preventing the skin from breaking. And just like that, over the course of maybe two or three more steps, the pain was gone and I was happily jogging forward in paradise once again.
Amazed at the bodies ability to take pain and so quickly move on, I thought back to other barefoot running experiences for confirmation of the insight. The piercing chill of an ice covered sidewalk, the burning heat of a desert highway, the bruising steel of a bumpy sewer cover, the prickly stab of a thorny branch. I've hit them all and easily moved on. Each time there was pain felt, but not enough to stop me. And never once did it last. At least not more than a day or two...or three. What's more, I've even come to enjoy the feeling of the pain. It gives me a sense of being fully alive in the world. Yes it hurts, but I'm out there doing it. Living it. Experiencing it.
And it got me thinking. Do I live my life the same way I run? Do any of us? I tried to lose myself once more in the tropical surroundings, but the question lingered longer than the pain from the rock. How many of us actually live life? Or, more accurately, don't live it? Because if we really thought about it, took a deep look, wouldn't we find that rather than going out and seeking the pain and exhilaration of living, many of us instead shield ourselves from it?
And I'm not just talking about wearing shoes when running. I'm taking about how we insulate ourselves from the true experiences of life.
We're so resistant to the slightest discomfort that we run air conditioning when it's slightly hot and heaters when it's barely cold. We record TV shows to avoid commercials. We pay extra to upgrade flights. Race to be the first in line. Complain when the service is slow. Feel rushed when the service is fast. We shield ourselves from rain. Draw curtains to block out light. Jockey for the closest parking space. And if it were only those small things, it might not matter so much. But, do we also play it just as safe in the bigger areas of our lives?
To protect ourselves from the pain of losing a job, do we settle for mediocrity that won't be rewarded but also won't draw attention to ourselves? Do we sacrifice pursuing our innermost passions because we're more worried about how we'll look if we fail than how rewarding it will be if we succeed? Do we avoid risks so we don't have to suffer the humiliation of defeat? Or swallow true feelings of love so we don't have to feel the embarrassment of rejection?
To escape the searing judgment of others, do we buy more expensive cars than we can afford and bigger houses than we need? Do we tell little white lies so that no one discovers we might be insecure or lonely or afraid of not being accepted? Do we gloss over a sense that we may be sacrificing our truest, most authentic selves to conform to a standard of life that has precious little to do with truly living?
I might suggest that our entire lives are structured around making life easier to manage, less painful, less confrontational, less feeling. That we carve away at who we really are to shape a public persona that will fit in. Avoid being different. Prevent discomfort. Escape judgment. Be accepted. But how much do we miss out on when we hide our deepest, truest selves to protect ourselves from getting hurt? From feeling pain? From experiencing life? Could that be the reason so many of us feel unfulfilled? Or why at the end of life so many desperately wish for the chance to do it all over again...differently?
As the pain of the table saw rock came back as what felt like a tender, greenish-brown bruise forming, I realized that I, and probably many others like me, spend so much effort trying to anesthetize ourselves from life that maybe we aren't really living it at all. And yes, maybe in life we're avoiding the pain of the rocks and ice and thorns, but we're also missing the exhilaration of running barefoot on wet grass, the inspiring joy of bare toes sloshing through mud and splashing in puddles, the intoxicating freedom of racing through the streets like a shoeless child, boundless, unshackled and recklessly exposed.
I circled back to the waterfront park just in time to see the AA meeting breaking up. The crowd was walking towards me and among the scarred, damaged, strung out, beaten down souls I saw moms and dads. I saw women who could be mistaken for Fortune 500 CEO's and young men who could be models. I saw construction workers and athletes. I saw wealthy socialites and homeless veterans. What I was witnessing, I realized, was people from all walks of life coming together for one thing. To live. To truly, fully, live. These are people who were once consumed with the effort of trying to anesthetize themselves from life with alcohol and drugs. They fought so hard to not feel life, that they likely nearly ended their lives in the process. They are the extreme embodiment of how most people live...trying to numb the pain, avoid the hurt, neutralize the feelings. And now, after hitting rock bottom, they are the exact people we should be emulating.
Because these are the people who, after surviving unimaginably horrendous experiences, discovered that life is worth living...fully. That there is a greater adaptation to being alive than trying to sedate ourselves. That yes, life can be rough and painful and messy and frustrating and that yes, we can fall, get hurt, fail and fail again-but that is exactly where the joy of life is found. In the living...in the experiencing...in the feeling. The people walking away from that AA meeting...and many more like them...are struggling not to hide from life, but to face it head on. They're committing to each other and to themselves that come what may, they're going to face it sober.
They're going to feel the sharp pain of every rock, the piercing chill of every patch of ice, the humiliating defeat of every failure, the sinking despondency of every heartbreak and every love lost. They've decided that rather than hide their true nature behind the facade of a pleasant, socially conforming mask, they would expose their most pathetic weaknesses to the light of every day. That they would allow all to have a front row seat when they take risks and fall flat on their face bloodied and broken. And as they do, an amazing thing happens. They experience life, fully and vividly. They may be hurt and embarrassed and ridiculed and laughed at and looked down on. They may fall and flail and fluster and fail. But they will also celebrate and embrace and rejoice and triumph. They will feel and experience and soar and relish.
In short, they will live. And wages, salaries, luxury cars, designer clothes, first class upgrades, air conditioners and white lies aside...isn't that what we're all here to do? Isn't there a lesson in this for all of us? Wouldn't a simple adjustment, a change of view, looking at life with a slightly different perspective make a profound difference in our lives? What would happen, really...how horrible could it get...if we shed the shackles of our fear of discomfort and pain and embarrassment and begin truly, fully living life? If, rather than choose to anesthetize ourselves from life, to sacrifice our true selves in the name of acceptance...we choose to live exposed, vulnerable, inviting, seeking with arms wide open, flailing and waving?
I say run barefoot. Step on the rocks. Sing on the street. Dance in the elevator. Roll in the snow. Kiss the girl. Hug the homeless man. Drive the rusted VW. Paint the masterpiece. Trip off the curb. Wear the plaid shirt with plaid shorts. Be happy. Take the chance. Seek out the risk. Follow your passion. Feel the shame. Fall on your face. Let others laugh at you.
Live not the life you want others to see. Live not the life that is safe and free of pain and discomfort. Live not a life seeking acceptance from others. Instead, live the life you dare to imagine you would if you could. Because you can. People are doing it every day. And that, no matter where you choose to live, is true paradise.
