Rule #3: Do Not Complain. About Anything. Ever.

I believe it was in the year 2002 at Philmont in ROCS that I was first exposed to the Ten Rules of Expedition Behavior. Although it may have been 2001 at Philmont. The point is these ten rules give an overview of what one needs to do to avoid being the despised guy on the trip. Rule #3 has always stuck out to me. Basically, whatever you are doing, wherever you are, for most people, at least Americans, you made choices to get to this place. This place is probably part of development into something grand and worth having and sometimes it is going to be hard. If it was easy everyone would do it. (For example, everyone starts blogs these days, but how many keep at it for four years?)

There was situation recently where a number of people complained about something they "had" to do. On the one hand I understood why they were upset, I was surprised they had to do it. On the other hand, I understood why they had to do it. After more thought I realized that the thing they had to do, I needed to do to improve myself, so I jumped in on the next round and helped white wash the fence metaphorically speaking.

Another story, February 2006, the north side of Mt. Adams in the Presidentials, New Hampshire on a Saturday was the worst weather I have ever encountered. Temperature was about -10F and winds were around 50 mph and gusting to over 70 mph above treeline. My face was cold, my hands were cold, I could hardly balance, we were moving slow, then my partner had cold feet in his leather boots. That was it we turned around. We did not reach the top, but neither had any permanent damage. The point is, we knew it was not going to be easy and given our two personalities there was no complaining. It is an extremely memorable trip for me that is entirely positive.

The point of all of this is, do you want to be here (wherever that may be) and suffer and work hard or not? You can quit, that is okay. But for those of us that stay, it is going to be tough. We will struggle. We may not even reach our goals, but when all is said and done we will know we gave our best.