Life Lessons I Learned From The Tough Mountain Challenge

About 6 months ago, a friend of mine at work told me about a "fun" competition that he had participated in. It was called "The Tough Mountain Challenge". My friend told me over and over how much fun it was and what a challenge it was. In fact, he talked about it so much and was so enthusiastic about it that he convinced me and a few of our friends to try it. So, we registered and paid the entrance fee to reserve a slot for us to do this race.
Yesterday was race-day. It seriously felt that in a blink of an eye and there we were, standing at the starting line, waiting to begin. I won't go into all the details, but suffice it to say, it was an extreme obstacle course that went about 2 miles up a mountain and 2 miles back down. The obstacles were all designed to be difficult in one way or another. Needless to say, I struggled with the run, but completed it.
Afterwards, people would come up to me and ask me if I had "Fun". I will be honest, during the race I had moments that were better than others, but overall the race was the hardest thing I have ever done physically in my life. I did, however, manage to discover some interesting parallels between the Tough Mountain Challenge and life. What follows are just some of the examples I learned.
The first thing I learned was the concept of time and its relativity. I am 28 years old and have lived an eventful life. This did not seem to matter though when it came time to race. At around the 20 minute mark, I started to feel like the race was never going to end. I know that's seems a little cliché, but it's truly how I felt. I was not sure if I would make it to the end, which seemed to be miles and miles away...  and indeed it was! Nothing I had done before the race seemed to matter when I was going through that much pain. At some points, I even questioned why I was in that race in the first place. Eventually, after struggling though each of the many obstacles, I came to the end. I was still in(and am still feeling) pain, but the race was over; no more obstacles, no more worrying, only rest and taking comfort in knowing it was over, and I had finished the race. As a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, I believe that we lived before this life. Who knows how long this period was, but we did exist. We are now on this earth, and nothing we did there makes our trials any easier here. Sometimes this life feels like it will never end, especially when we are going through the pains and trials of our own lives. Sometimes, the trials feel like they will never end and the finish line is forever away. Sometimes, we may question the very purpose for going through the struggles and trials we face. When all is said and done, like in the race, we will finally rest from all our cares and worries and struggles and pains. We will look back and say "Wow, I did it! I didn't think I was going to, but I pushed on and I made it!" I can only imagine how great the release from pain and ailments will feel when we rest from the burdens of this life. That is not to say we cannot enjoy this life, but the purpose and design of this life is to be a test. In my experience that it certainly has been!
Another thing I learned was that the obstacles in the race were placed very strategically. What I mean by this is that the obstacles seemed to be placed in a manner that would cause you to get soaked, then let you dry out, then get soaked again, then let you dry out again. This was likely designed to make things more difficult, but I realized afterwards that this actually allowed me to stay cooler during sections of the race where there was no shade. I have noticed this same pattern in my life. Sometimes we experience things that make our mental, emotional, compassionate, or patience muscles to toughen up so that we can be better prepared for future struggles in our own lives or in the lives of others. It has been no coincidence to me that these struggles seem to come at very specific times and for very specific reasons. I believe this is truly the case for everyone, and not just for myself.
I learned that the obstacles in the race vary greatly as do the trials in our lives. Some of the obstacles which I considered to be difficult, others found to be easy. Some obstacles I found to be easy, were harder for others. This gave me a deeper understanding that we should never look down on others for struggling with things we see as "minor trials" or "small temptations".
I learned that the more people had prepared themselves physically for the obstacles, the better they performed. In life, then better we prepare ourselves spiritually, the better equipped we are to handle the trials of this life. Although some trials may bring us to our knees at times and we may feel completely taken off guard, anything we have done to increase our faith will certainly reduce the difficulty, even if it's only a fraction, it is still something.
I learned and will likely soon realize more lessons I learned from the race, but the final lesson is what happened at the end of the race. I entered the race with some friends from work. These friends were of a good physical build, but most of us had never undertaken such a physical endeavor such as this previously. When I finished, I found one of these friends waiting for me. It was so nice to see someone there waiting and cheering me on. Once finished, we waited for our other friends to finish. 30 minutes went by and no sign of them. 60 minutes, no sign of them. It was a little after this point we became VERY worried. "Were they ok?" We asked each other, not knowing if they were still going through the course or if they had given up. We both were hoping that they were still trying to finish. We knew how they would likely feel if they had given up or turned back. Finally, after about 90 minutes of waiting, they came into view. They had struggled a lot more in certain obstacles than we did and this caused them to take more time to finish. We were so happy to see them and be together afterwards to share our experiences and our thoughts and feelings through the course. I feel like this is how "The Afterlife" will be. I can't help but feel like we will be anxious to see our family and friends again. We will be concerned for those who have gone before and those who still live through their trials. We will be excited to meet up with our loved ones again and hear of their struggles and their triumphs. We will hope to hear that they made it through the course of life successfully and didn't ever give up. We will be so happy to know that we are together again and can now use all of our learning, knowledge, and experiences to the benefit of ourselves and others.
I know this was a long post, but I wanted to simply share the things I learned. I can say about the race, and the life I have lead this far, that it was difficult. At times, neither has been fun. However, I have learned and grown from the experiences and hope to continue, to not give up until the Lord can finally say "Well done though good and faithful servant." I am grateful for the knowledge of the Plan of Salvation; the Plan which God has for all of his children to eventually make it back to live with Him again.

A long over-due "Thank you"

The recent visit I had with a dear friend from my youth has caused me to reflect on my past. As I'm sure all could say of our pasts, mine was full of good and bad. I loved the good for the great joys and experiences I can now cherish and look back on with a smiling heart. I have now come to appreciate the bad times for the learning experiences that they were. My thoughts and feelings about the learning experiences of the past I can share later. For right now, I want to express my deepest gratitude to my Heavenly Father for allowing me to grow up in what is known as the "Bangor Maine Stake." For those of you unfamiliar with the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, a "stake" is a territory that covers a number of congregations. Our stake covered from Waterville to Lincoln, from Farmington to Machias. When I was in my mid and later teen years, it was the norm to be the only, or one of a few, youth in your congregation. This was the case for me. I was the only youth my age until I was about 17-18. I looked forward to the activities we would have once or twice a month because I was able to be around the type of youth that I shared moral and spiritual values with. The leaders were also the type of men and women that you would someday hope to become more like. They varied in their income or physical prowess, but what they all had in common was a passion for the gospel and their dedication towards the youth of the Church. As I said before, I looked forward to these activities so much. So much even, that I would often forgo spending time with friends from school or attending other school activities to attend the youth activities.


While the activities themselves had wonderful messages, or perhaps were just a good time, I came to love and appreciate each and every youth that would go to these activities as well. It was at these activities that I met my two best friends in the world. These two friends I met so many years ago have been two of the best supports I could have hoped for these past couple of months. I also met numerous young ladies while attending these activities. This was where I first started to learn the ropes of how to treat and interact with women. I ended up dating a handful of these young women and became very good friends with the others. These too have gone their varying ways into the world and been successful in their various endeavors. Many are now married happily in temples or outside of them. They are college graduates, hard workers, and mothers. They are all wonderful people to whom I look up to. The leaders, for the most part, have all been reassigned to other callings or tasks but still continue to be an inspiration and provide a shining light to the current youth, adults, and myself. The thing all of these people have in common is that they were each present in my childhood. Each one of these people left a mark on me that caused me to be the person I am today. Some people may hear this and think they did something bad! But that is not the case. Any flaws or shortcomings I currently have, I developed despite the great influences and experiences they provided. I can remember a stake president sharing his testimony in a talk entitled "The parable of the Leaves" which impacted me greatly and caused me to think of the less-active and inactive members of the stake. I remember spending the night with a bunch of the other young men at a leaders home where he stayed up and played video games with us and just talked to us. I remember going to church dances where we were encouraged to include everyone and where I first decided I would try to reach out to the young women who maybe wouldn't ask the young men to dance, so they would be included. I remember going to Friendly's after the church dances with all of the youth for ice-cream. I remember constantly wanting to make others laugh and therefore setting myself up for acts of embarrassment, sometimes intentionally, sometimes not. I remember going on group dates with righteous young women and young men where we could have a fun time, without crude jokes or anything else that would be offensive to God. I remember planning a youth conference with a young woman who bore the brunt of the planning and worked hard to pick up my slack in order to put on a fun and spiritual event for all the youth of the stake. I remember an activity where we learned to eat a meal with the proper etiquette, something I used on my mission in the appropriate settings. I remember testimony meetings where I was witness to the many beautiful and simple testimonies that each helped to shape my own. So many fond memories that I could not even write a 1000th of them here.


There are so many people I would like to thank for simply being who they were at those times. They may not know or comprehend their influence on me. If I could, I would give each one of you the biggest hug and thank you for being who are. You may have never spoken to me. We may never have been close friends. We may not have had the relationship that you deserved or wanted. But each person I came in contact with, helped me to become who I am today and I am eternally grateful for that. I would not be who I am today without each of you. To sum up, I love you all and I thank you. I hope someday to be given the chance to express this to each of you personally. Until then, I hope to somehow to be the example and influence to others that you have all been to me. You are all amazing and may Heavenly Father bless you for your part in helping to shape me for the better. Thank you, and I owe you big time!