“No one is going to come help you. No one’s coming to save you.”
― David Goggins, Can’t Hurt Me: Master Your Mind and Defy the Odds
So, who the fuck is David Goggins?
David Goggins swears a lot. For him, in order to be able to explain how hard things really were for him and are for anyone seeking mastery, he needs to use every word available in his vocabulary, including fuck, fuckin, fucked.
But why? Who is him? What happened to him? Why does he has to swear so much?
I think it is fair to say that David Goggins, today, is as he proclaims himself, is: “The hardest motherfucker in planet earth”.
This man has no equal. Truly.
Born into violence, racism, poverty, in short, adversity. He narrates in his book: “Can’t hurt me: Master Your Mind and Defy the Odds.” how he came out of being everything he was told he was going to be, a nobody, a loser, just another statistic of failed men.
Everything in life, as it is unfortunately for many as well, appeared to be against him. He narrates terrifying stories of his dad punching his mother in the face, while he watched with the inevitable incapacity of a child. Horrible, horrible things that he describes with painful detail in his book.
What’s interesting about this man is precisely this, according to statistics, whenever a child is born in the situation similar to the one David was born, you’ll just become another bum, furthering the hideous vicious cycle many find themselves stuck in. But not for Goggins, Goggins rose from adversity like a fiery phoenix. He thrived and still thrives today in adversity.
Today, Goggins, Navy Seal, is considered one of the best endurance-athletes in the entire world. He completed 3 hell weeks, considered the toughest warrior training in the world. Adding to that, he has completed more than 60 Ultra races, one of them Badwater 135 Death Valley- considered the world’s toughest foot race. He also held the Guinness World Record for the most pull-ups done in 24 hours completing 4,030 in 17 hours.
David Goggins is the living proof on the gargantuan capacity for greatness a human has by controlling his mind.
“How long are you going to wait before you demand the best for yourself and in no instance bypass the discriminations of reason? You have been given the principles that you ought to endorse, and you have endorsed them. What kind of teacher, then, are you still waiting for in order to refer your self-improvement to him? You are no longer a boy, but a full-grown man. If you are careless and lazy now and keep putting things off and always deferring the day after which you will attend to yourself, you will not notice that you are making no progress, but you will live and die as someone quite ordinary.
From now on, then, resolve to live as a grown-up who is making progress, and make whatever you think best a law that you never set aside. And whenever you encounter anything that is difficult or pleasurable, or highly or lowly regarded, remember that the contest is now: you are at the Olympic Games, you cannot wait any longer, and that your progress is wrecked or preserved by a single day and a single event. That is how Socrates fulfilled himself by attending to nothing except reason in everything he encountered. And you, although you are not yet a Socrates, should live as someone who at least wants to be a Socrates.”
― Epictetus (From Manual 51)
David Goggins, a man of truly Stoic character, I urge you to check him out.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dIM7E8e9JKY&t=47s
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