What's your word?

I came across an interesting insight from Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert. Every city has a word. For example, New York’s is achieve and Rome’s is sex. Similarly, every person has a word. This got me thinking, what’s Portland’s word, and naturally, what’s my word?

I’ll put the Portland question aside for now, since I’m still basically an extended-stay tourist, and focus on my word.

I’ve heard that you should be able to sum up your current state in life to a few sentences. If that’s true, it’d be way easier just to be able to explain your life in a word, right? I like this idea because you really have to be true to yourself to funnel down everything you believe into one solitary word.

But anyways, I decided that my word is: sacrifice.

I don’t exactly know why I am sacrificing, I tell myself it’s for society. I don’t know if it’s a good thing, I like to think it is. I don’t even really know what I am sacrificing. But the way that word came to me, I know that sacrifice is my word.

I’ve always had an uncomfortable taste for suffering. Mostly, I think I developed this taste through running.

I think the most memorable period of my life is the summer I spent in Wyoming. I loved the friends I made there, climbing Middle Teton, working at the restaurant, but most of all I will never forget the absolutely heart-wrenching running I did there. Running twice a day, day after day, running more miles in a week than I ever believed possible. I ran over a thousand miles that summer.

It sounds strange, but I think everybody should experience that sort of suffering. Not necessarily through running, but somehow. Maybe to understand what real suffering is like. Maybe because there is immense beauty in human struggle. Maybe because I am too proud to accept limits.

It is absolutely scary how accurate John L. Parker’s Once A Runner, a novel about the trials of an olympian in training, portrays this sort of beauty in suffering. You should definitely read it.

I assume this sort of constant suffering can’t be healthy, and I am starting to learn to cut myself some slack, for the better, hopefully. I think one of the reasons I came out to Portland was because I thought I needed to relax a little bit, have some fun, and enjoy myself more. On a sidenote, I think Portland’s word is something like chill, or fun, or happy. I started taking up new hobbies, forcing myself to get more sleep, etc. etc. And I probably should do some more of that.

But another one of the reasons I came out to Portland was to learn to be true to myself. And one of the things I sincerely believe about my life is that I want to learn how to play with that border between pushing the edge and falling over to burnout.

A Vince Lombardi quote:

“In great attempts, it is glorious even to fail.”

When I burnout, or die, or both, some combination of which will probably happen to me, I just want to know that I tried. And maybe suffering is my way of knowing.

Suffering drives me, to be able to push further and sacrifice myself more for the world that has given me so many amazing chances. And I guess that’s how I know my word is my word.

So anyways, that’s my word. What’s your’s?

from ken

Are you trying to change your life? I'd love to hear about it! ken.e.noguchi@gmail.com

photo by Paulo Brandao