JANUARY 18th - Suck It Up



So you’re having a bad day. You only have twenty minutes for lunch and the line at Chick-fil-A is stretched out for miles. You stubbed your toe after getting a paper cut. Your significant other cheated on you. You found out the kid wasn’t yours (although context might make that a good day). Whatever the reason, you’re feeling a little frustrated, a bit perturbed, a tad down in the dumps. Well let me just assure that there is very little chance that you day is going as badly as Robert Falcon Scott’s did on this day in 1912. On this day Scott found out he was the second person to reach the South Pole. Problem is he wanted to be the first. But Roald Amundsen reached the destination more than a month before. You travel through freezing conditions and suffer all kind of hardships only to find out you were second fiddle. That would probably chap your ass--although I’m sure the South Pole would chap your everything pretty naturally. But it got worse for poor R.F.Scott. The South Pole was not very forgiving despite his original bad day. It pounded his return expedition with horrific weather and two the party died while Scott and the other two survivors were stranded in a storm a mere 11 miles from the base camp. 8 months later they were found. Frozen. So perhaps your favorite team lost in the playoffs or your kid decided to go Picasso on your new coffee table with permanent marker or you got a camera ticket. But you should be thankful that you didn’t travel through frigid conditions chasing your dreams to be the first explorer to reach the South Pole only to find out you were second and then die on the return journey a few miles from safety.

Suck it up.

This Day has been Marked.

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