Good Morning

A Ruck on the Beach, and a Lesson on the Goodness of Suffering

One morning, during our guys' vacation in Marco Island, we decided to head out on a morning hike. Actually, it wasn't a typical hike, we loaded our backpacks with 20lbs bags of sand; this is commonly known as a ruck.

It was a beautiful morning and a lot of people were out as we started. One of the guys in our group, a dedicated triathlete who is really into fitness, suggested a challenge: “I think we should do 1 push-up every time someone says, ‘good morning.’”

I turned to him and asked, “Why do you think this way?” A few seconds later we were dropping for push-ups.

Initially, I playfully initiated a 'good morning' with each passerby, wanting to punish my friends for ruining a nice morning walk on the beach. But soon the 20lbs bags of sand started feeling like 25, then 30, and playtime was over!

The ruck was about 5 miles long, 2 hours total. At the start of the second hour I distinctly remember noticing that each of us stopped making eye contact with people, hoping to avoid the now dreaded, “good morning.”

As we were wrapping up, one of my friends said, “I never paid attention to how friendly people are until today.”

I’ve been thinking about what he said for a few days.

Suffering has a way of clarifying things; it sharpens our perspective on reality by clearing away the judgments that so easily skew the way we see the world.

For instance, I heard a story of an art exhibit that was put up in a public square for a few months, thousands of people flocked to see it. One morning as visitors came to observe, they noticed an addition — graffiti! Someone had come at night and defaced the exhibit.

The people who showed up quickly began complaining about how disrespectful people had become, they specifically identified the perpetrator(s) as “the young people of our day,” without having any evidence.

Now, suppose you were to give those people an assignment to clean up all the graffiti in that neighborhood that day—a small form of suffering. How would that change their perspective?

Engaging in this task would likely lead them to discover that neighborhoods typically aren't defaced with graffiti, even those teaming with “the young people of our day.” This experience would shift their perspective, revealing that acts of vandalism are not representative of the entire community, but rather the actions of a few individuals. The small suffering of cleaning up graffiti could purify their outlook, bringing a greater appreciation for the goodness inherent in most people.

This is an example of the positive benefits of suffering, and it’s why we should not avoid it; rather, we should embrace it as helpful discipline that can de-fog our easily skewed perspective.

(On a side note: I’m very concerned with our society as we become increasingly anesthetized to all sorts of pain and suffering. We will certainly pay a price for our avoidance of pain at all costs.)

That day, we did well over 100 sandy push-ups in 2 hours. And, mind you, we were very legalistic in our approach. If people said “hi” or “hey,” we did not drop down, only for “good mornings.” Had we done a push-up for every kind greeting, we’d likely still be there.

In closing, this experience reminded me that the world, fallen as it may be, is filled with people who are made in the image and likeness of a good God. That means it is filled with people that were made to be good, people in whom goodness still dwells. Sometimes our perspective gets so cloudy that it takes a healthy dose of suffering to see that this is the case.

This is why many religions value and encourage practices like fasting, solitude and silence, giving, and other acts of service. These practices reshape our perspective and enable us to look with clearer eyes and see things as they are.

“Good morning.” (You know what to do.)