Hardness

Adding 'ness onto the end of a word makes it better. It is also much more fun to say. Hard is the root word here. Ness is just added for effect and funness. There it is again. So anyhow. Hard. Thats what Eco-Challenge was. I won't get into too many details so as not to spoil christmas for any of my friends back home who might read this and do 24/7 later. For me, it was harder than Ironman, which was the hardest thing I have ever done. The fact that it was two days was a big part of that. The good thing about it though, was the lessons that I learned.

Self reliance is out. Pandiculated, uneccesary, useless, harmful even. I CANNOT do it on my own. I thought that I had a grasp of that concept, I was wrong. I have a much better grasp now. I now see much more clearly in a certain way that I truly, truly cannot do anything on my own. I might struggle along for a little while and do ok, but it will not last. No sir. 

I must lead. I am a little saddened that I did not step up and lead as much as I could have. I let myself take a back seat and let Zach and Angie lead the most. Monica stepped up in a phenomenal way (Phenomenal is my new favorite word btw.) The problem is I feel like I should have stepped up and done what Monica did. Instead I let myself focus more on myself and my pain and I let myself get into my flesh for long periods of time. Angie talked to me once and told me to step up and lead like she knew I could and should. I listened but I didn't really do it. A little bit, but not much. I wish I had done more. The positive side is that I learned that lesson anyways, just in a different way than I should have. I realized what happens when somebody doesn't step up and lead. I am not saying we didn't do well, we did a phenomenal job. I personally let myself down though because I know God wanted me to be a leader in that situation. I know he wanted me to step out and encourage. To show everyone, Aurora especially, that even when it is extremely hard you can step up and push yourself and everyone else. I wish I had. The plus is that I saw it afterwards and I will be able to improve in the future.

I am nothing and the worst of sinners. Pride is a bad thing. Pride gets in the way. Pride beats us down and keeps us down. I learned that I cannot have pride and push myself past my limits. Why? Because I need others to help me get past my limits and when I am being prideful I won't let others help me. When we were doing the biking I struggled with the pride. I am a biker, I love biking. I mountain biked for a year and got myself into good shape, particularly for biking. Then I didn't hardly get on my bike for almost 4 years and I lost all biking muscle in my legs. So, that put me in a place where I am a good biker, very comfortable on a bike, but not as strong as I have been, so I had some trouble with the uphills. Well, my pride rose up during that when people would be encouraging me just like they were encouraging Aurora (who is a terrible biker, no offence intended). I wanted them to leave me alone because I was a good biker, I was experienced, I knew how to ride a bike, I could control it, I could get up those hills. I realized that I was being prideful. I realized that I am not that good of a biker if I have a hard time getting up those little hills we had. Could I have stayed on the bike the entire time and not walked up a hill? Maybe, with difficulty, but certainly not without encouragement. Even when I felt like I didn't need it, I did. It helped even when I didn't think it did, particularly once I realized that I was being prideful. 

I am a slow walker. I don't know what it is about me but I walk slower than everyone else. I am able to walk fast for a short period of time but keeping up that pace is pretty much not possible on my own. It feels like I am practically running and I hate it. I am hoping that as I run this summer and improve in that I will be getting better at walking. Oh well. I also learned that I hate hiking at a forced pace. I like pleasure hiking where I can take my time. 

So, thats a few of the things that I learned through Eco. I am going to be honest with all of you: I will probably not blog about my trip to Kenya. Everyone always says they will get around to it but they wanted to get this post out of the way first. Well, I highly doubt that I will come back and blog about Africa. Sorry. I will, however, post some images on photobucket or some such website and then post the link here. Farewell for now.