Fall down seven times, get up eight times.

— Japanese Proverb

I have struggled over the last couple of weeks.  There have been so many challenges. (Don’t you love that euphemism?) Work challenges, travel challenges, financial challenges, family challenges.  In that constant, unending, “will this ever fucking let up” kind of way.

On a recent morning, I wondered whether any of my mentors, my idols, my heroes ever woke up and said, “Shit, another day of struggle ahead.”  Folks like Jack Canfield, Tony Robbins, Robin Sharma.  The motivators, the great inspirational speakers of our time.  Do they struggle? Or are there just certain enlightened folks who roll out of bed with a smile and unbendable optimism every single day?

I’m not sure. But my suspicion is that everybody struggles.

And that it’s timeless too.

This is the story they tell:  A young mother came to the Buddha’s door.  In her arms was the dead body of her infant.  With tears streaming down her face, she begged the Buddha to restore her child’s life.  The Buddha instructed her that if she were able to bring to him a mustard seed from the home of someone who had never suffered any loss, that he would be able to bring her infant back to life.  Frantically she searched only to discover what all of us already know to be true.

Dante Alighieri’s masterpiece begins:  “In the middle of the journey of our life, I came to myself, in a dark wood, where the direct way was lost. It is a hard thing to speak of, how wild, harsh and impenetrable that wood was, so that thinking of it recreates the fear. It is scarcely less bitter than death: but, in order to tell of the good that I found there, I must tell of the other things I saw there.”

Colonel Sanders was turned down 300 times before anyone endorsed his dream.  Jack Canfield’s Chicken Soup for the Soul was rejected 130 times before it went on to form the cornerstone of a multi-million dollar conglomerate.  Tony Robbins spoke to a room of four people when he first began his mission.  Sylvester Stallone had to sell his dog in order to put food on his table while he peddled Rocky.

Mother Theresa shared with her biographer the dark night of her own soul – her doubts, her loneliness, her search for the God she could not see – that stretched on for decades.  Imagine that: Mother Theresa lost and struggling.

A client of mine was shot in the line of duty.  His surgery required a temporary colostomy. When his “plumbing” was hooked back up, he had a difficult time “going” again.  His sister, as an “inspirational” gift, bought him the wonderful children’s potty training book Everyone Poops.

An excellent reminder.

Everyone searches.

Everyone struggles. Everyone poops.

As with one, so the other.  Ya’ just need to keep on goin.’

Vist us at Hampton Photography.

It accelerated through the col; seventy, eighty miles per hour. I leaned against a rock to brace myself.  The front had finally passed. The air was fresh and clean and cold. A hundred feet above, the ground turned to rime ice and snow.  A Columbus Day gift.  We retreated to the safety of the trees, laughing at the antics of the wind.

Standing on the high ridges – feeling the wind on my face – has always renewed me. It is there that I am re-created.  It is there that my spirit finds rest.

Many of us retreat into the wilderness to renew ourselves.  I fear that it may become a lost art.

I love email for the ease of communication.  Google is nothing short of astounding as a research tool. I am able to maintain relationships across the decades and around the world through Facebook.

The hand-eye coordination required by electronic gaming will inspire the next generation of micro-surgeons.  Computer savvy teens will create new technology beyond our wildest imaginations. Internet marketing will re-invent our economy.

But something fundamental fails us as we hurdle into these virtual worlds.

This appeared recently in the Investors Business Daily:  “Web sites where users interact in virtual worlds are growing in popularity, particularly among the young. User accounts have topped 1 billion, up from 650 million a year ago, according to a survey by KZero. Virtual worlds are computer-generated environments, like Second Life, where users construct avatar characters to interact with users.  Children ages 10 -15 account for 46% of users, followed by 15-25 year olds with 29%.”

And within days, this:  “The U.S. ‘virtual  goods’ market will hit $2.1 billion next year, up 31% from $1.6 billion this year, according to research firm Inside Network. Social online network games like Facebook’s ‘FarmVille’ and ‘Mafia Wars’ are leading the trend, the report said. Players of these social games pay real money for digitally animated items, such as plants and tractors in ‘FarmVille.’ that help them further develop their digital creations, earning the respect and praise of their Facebook friends. Facebook’s massive base of 500 million users also fuels sales for the games.”

At dinner one night, my friend Bob wondered aloud whether his grand-children would know – whether they would have the capacity to know – the joy he finds in retreating to the woods.

Virtual worlds will rob us of our ability to know the Wonder of what is Real.  They will leave us orphaned.

To walk the earth.  To know the woods.  To feel the wind. To touch each other. These are the things that ground us.

I guess I’m with Madonna.  I’m a material guy.

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.

— Lao-tzu

It seemed like it must be lunchtime.  I couldn’t tell for sure.  I didn’t have a watch. I had lost track of the hours.  But I had that vague uneasiness I sometimes get when there’s a chance I might miss a meal.

“Mile 23” the sign said.  How did I get here I wondered.

My hip flexors were angry.

I looked up.  The sun seemed high in the sky.

The soles of my feet argued with me.

My mind drifted back to the sound that they had made in the snow on summit day. There had been no wind that night.  Just the crunch of my boots as I walked the last 300 feet on that narrow corniced ridge, the great south face of Denali dropping off 5000′ to my right, 1000′ of air to my left.

Then suddenly I was beside the pool at the Hotel Aconcagua in Mendoza, celebrating the New Year in the warm Argentine summer.  A gentle breeze.  Ann and I.  Talking about Malbec and tango.  And our audacious goals for 2010: summit Denali and run a marathon.  

“Mile 25” the sign said.  “Really?” I said out loud.

Brutal cold. Heavy packs. Thin air. Nineteen days. So hard to breathe.

So much preparation.  So many months.  So many miles.

So many steps.

Denali.  A dream for forty years.  Achieved.

How long ago had I passed the twenty-mile marker?  It reminded me of the view from just below the summit ridge. The moment I felt certain. The moment that doubt dropped away. The moment that I knew that I would “do it.”

I thought of the long runs through the Farmington Valley and along the Irish coast. All the way back to months and months ago when the “long runs” were four miles; and the stretch to ten seemed an impossibility.

Slowly. Deliberately. Mile after mile.  We built it.

The tiny details. The strength training. The weight training.  The cross training.

I thought about The Compound Effect.  A great book by Darren Hardy.  An inspiration for me in times of darkness and discouragement. A compelling reminder for me that small efforts applied consistently over time make all the difference in the world.

I thought about my great partner, Ann, and her meticulous training regimen.  About the splatter of the rain on our bedroom skylight as we tugged at yesterday’s smelly socks.  About the dark dawns.  About the cold slush that seeped into our running shoes.  About the days we didn’t want to lift another load or see another stair stepper.

And I thought about the joyous day that mile sixteen slid by as easily as mile four.

And about the glory of standing on the roof of North America with my best friend under the midnight sun.

I talked my hip flexors “off the ledge.”  “Mile 26,” the sign announced.  “No fucking way,” I said.

I could hear the music in the distance.  And then I saw it:  the finish line. It was most certainly time for lunch.

What is essential is invisible to the eye.

— Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, The Little Prince

I have a confession to make:  I’m a huge James Bond fan.  I have loved them all in all of their incarnations and inanity, from Connery to Craig.

Dr. No was the first Bond movie, dating all the way back to 1962. Bond was played by the inimitable Sean Connery. Julius No was the villain.

But these days, I tend to think of anyone with doctoral level skills in “No” as a hero.

I’m giving a workshop this week for the Connecticut Bar Association on life balance. Last week, as I was getting ready for the workshop, I saw a colleague of mine, Sandy, in the courthouse.

Sandy called out to me across the hallway, “Walt, I hear you’re giving the seminar on life balance.”

“Yes,” I said.  “Are you coming?”

Breathlessly, because Sandy is usually breathless and in a hurry, she replied, “No, can’t, have no time.”

We both chuckled about how ridiculous that sounded.  But however ridiculous it may have been, it is, for most of us, not only irony but truth.

We have no time to get balanced because we’re so out of balance. And breathless.

Saying “no” might help.

Most of us want to please others and be seen as affable.  If we get asked to contribute in some way to a church or  school or community event, most often our knee-jerk reaction is to say yes. And  if we dare say no, it’s not without some chagrin and guilt.

Parents are particularly prone to “yes.”  We’re hard-wired to want the best for our kids.  We’re hard-wired to want to see them happy.  Most of the time, in our minds, the “best,” or what we think will make them “happy,” is to say “yes” to whatever the request is.  Even when saying “no” may be the “right” response.

Helping professionals are especially at risk.  We get paid to come to the rescue. And coming to the rescue feeds our sense of self-worth.  The more we say yes, the more meaning and significance  we feel.  Even when saying “yes” places us at risk for divorce, depression, and burn-out.

Not only that, saying yes, being busy, is “in.”

How often during the course of the day does this occur?  “How are you?” you ask someone.  “Busy,” they reply.”

Busy is a badge of honor.  Busy is good.  If you’re not busy, something’s wrong!

How would it be if someone were to ask you how you were and you were to respond, “Languid.” “Bored!” “Been laying about.” “Haven’t had a thing to do in weeks!”  You’d get a look that might suggest you were on crack.

You gotta be busy.  Because to be busy is to be important.  To be busy is to have worth.

The problem, of course, is that by continually saying yes, we become stretched too thin, over-extended. Depleted.  Worth-less.

I really like the Pareto Principal. It’s also called the 80/20 rule.

Tim Ferriss in his provocative  book The 4-Hour Work Week, says, “When I came across Pareto’s work one late evening, I had been slaving away with 15-hour days seven days per week, feeling completely overwhelmed and generally helpless.”

Overwhelmed and helpless ring any bells?  I know that I am susceptible to this!

“Faced with certain burnout or giving Pareto’s ideas a trial run, I opted for the latter,” Ferriss says.  “The next morning, I began a dissection of my business and personal life through the lenses of two questions:

1. Which 20% of sources are causing 80% of my problems and unhappiness?

2. Which 20% of sources are resulting in 80% of my desired outcomes and happiness?”

What are the 20% of the customers or clients that give you 80% of the headaches? Get rid of them. What is the 20% of your work that gives you 80% of your joy? Focus on it.

Who are the 20% of people who produce 80% of your happiness, who support and encourage you?  Who are the 20% who  cause the 80% of your angst?

You get the idea.  We all take on too much.  And much of what we take on is at the margins.  Get rid of what’s not working.  Do only what is.

Say no more often.  Say yes only to what is essential.  Say yes to what brings joy.

Robert Frost wrote, “good fences make good neighbors.”  Our boundaries matter. They protect us and make us whole.

By eliminating whole bushels of stuff from our life, we open expanses of time that allow us to rest and renew.  To reclaim our sense of purpose. Our sense of wonder. Our creativity. Ourselves.

By saying no to what’s not working, we dissipate busyness, we open ourselves to the richness and fullness of life.

By saying no, we say yes.

Today’s piece marks the 52nd entry in my blog Journeys on the Edge. During the fourteen months that I have written, I have had hundreds of readers, comments and emails.  For all of these, I am grateful. Thank you.  At one level, this is a selfish undertaking:  the things I write about are the things I think about and struggle with.  At another, it is a labor of love: it is my hope that my rambling thoughts might benefit others in some small way as we travel this Great Journey together.  In the words of the poet Constantine Cavafy, may your way be long.    — Walt Hampton

The tao that can be told is not the eternal Tao. The name that can be named is not the eternal Name. The unnameable is the eternally real. Naming is the origin of all particular things. Free from desire, you realize the mystery. Caught in desire, you see only the manifestations. Yet mystery and manifestations arise from the same source. This source is called darkness. Darkness within darkness. The gateway to all understanding.

— Lao-Tzu

“Benedicto: May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds. May your rivers flow without end, meandering through pastoral valleys tinkling with bells, past temples and castles and poets’ towers into a dark primeval forest where tigers belch and monkeys howl, through miasmal and mysterious swamps and down into a desert of red rock, blue mesas, domes and pinnacles and grottos of endless stone, and down again into a deep vast ancient unknown chasm where bars of sunlight blaze on profiled cliffs, where deer walk across the white sand beaches, where storms come and go as lightning clangs upon the high crags, where something strange and more beautiful and more full of wonder than your deepest dreams waits for you — beyond that next turning of the canyon walls.”

Edward Abbey