A phrase you here a lot on the field is get comfortable with the uncomfortable. Everything is always changing, you see things you wish you didn’t, and you deal with things you don’t like and all you have is the saying get comfortable with the uncomfortable. I’ve lived by those exact words for the past 33 weeks. With less than one month left I can say I’ve officially become comfortable with the uncomfortable. On the 230th day of my race though I hate that phrase. However, I don’t hate it because I’m sick of hearing it, but because today I realized I don’t agree with it. Don’t be comfortable with the uncomfortable.
I was reading National Geographic when I stumbled across a picture of a slum in Nigeria with a city skyline in the background. I sat there and thought “holy cow, could you imagine living there and seeing that skyline everyday”. A skyline that represented so much wealth while you lived in such poverty. I slowly started to remember my time in Manila, Philippines. The city skyline was if not larger, the same size as the one in the picture I sat there looking at. I woke up to that skyline every morning for a month straight and then looked directly to the left and saw a neighborhood of shacks. I’ve become so used to seeing heartbreaking things that I stopped wondering and started becoming comfortable with it all. I became okay walking past a person begging for food. It’s actually sad to think how comfortable most people are with that exact act. There were approximately 138,575 (about 12,000 were children, 32,000 of the adults were domestic violence victims, and over 1,000 veterans were found on any given night) homeless people living on the streets of Chicago during 2013-2014. There are approximately 2 million people living in Chicago. How many of those people do you think give a dollar a day to any single person on the streets? How many of them do you think actually stop and recognize those people as humans? Money isn’t the only thing you can give. In fact if you ask me some time and compassion go a lot farther than money ever will. Most people don’t care about any of this though because they’ve become comfortable with the uncomfortable. Looking at someone living on the streets shouldn’t be comfortable though. Walking through a slum should bring some heartbreak. Seeing a child wearing the same outfit every day for a month shouldn’t sit well with you.
So 22 days before I return to the states I’m promising myself to never become comfortable with the uncomfortable again. Because once you become comfortable with it it’s easy to over look it and peg it as normal. I sure you though more times than not the uncomfortable should never be normal.
Love and prayers,
Court
