Sunday Encouragement in anticlimatic

Finally had it with NPR this afternoon after listening to my 731st rerun about the ethical nature of slavery reparations and turned it to Christian NPR, one station up, on the off chance that I might hear something novel, or even remotely interesting.

On that channel a navy seal was describing his experience going through training. He said that 80% of the men who try out for the training drop out- men that put the most physically fit men you have ever seen to shame. That it was the fear that made them quit, and that the fear was contagious. If one guy quit, others would follow in his wake.

The training involved several months of intense abuse, often near the point of drowning, from 4am until late every evening. He said he would have dropped out too were it not for the fact that the sergeant administering the training “liked him.”

Which isn’t to say he was nice to him, or did him any favors. All he did was break character during the first day for a single sentence of encouragement. After that, he went back to his role of rigid trainer. But that one line was enough to get him through. He said:

“Hey....it’s going to seem impossible, but it’s not. I did it, and I was not much different from you at all. If you can get up, brush your teeth, and make your bed by 4 am every morning- that’s three small victories already. Then? Just go for one more. Every time, tell yourself that. ‘Just one more.’“