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S7.E4 - Endurance - Part 4
30 Plays21 days ago
Welcome to the 50th episode!! This week Robb leads our discussion of Part 4 from Endurance: Shackleton’s Incredible Voyage by Alfred Lansing.
(3:08) Have you ever looked forward to something so much only to find it completely different from what you expected?
(13:00) Have you ever faced a force working against you so strongly despite your efforts? What was the context of the situation and how did you overcome it?
(25:31) When was the last time you found yourself lost? How did you manage to get to where you needed to go?
Next week we’ll discuss Part 5 (pages 223 - 272).
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See you next week! Until then - read, reflect, and connect.
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Transcript
Shackleton's Open Water Journey
00:00:39
Speaker
today's episode we're going to be exploring part four. It really brought a few things to mind for me. One, when I was writing this script, I was like, this kind of reminds me of that old speech class where the professor drilled into your head that every speech should have an intro, body and conclusion. So I'm going to give you it too in in this format. All right.
00:01:02
Speaker
So here's how I'd break down part four into a speech. The intro, Shackleton and his crew are finally out on open water after four months heading to a destination that could change at any given moment. Why?
00:01:18
Speaker
Well, because they only switched it about five times. But let's dive into the body for more context. The men and their boats get absolutely blasted, as Flez would say, by fierce winds, sending them in every possible direction. They thought they were going one way, but nope, turned out they'd been blown 22 miles in completely opposite direction.
00:01:40
Speaker
Talk about brutal. Which brings me to another thing part four reminded me of. Limp Biscuit's 2000 hit, Keep Rolling. But if I'm being real, it should have been keep rowing. Because well, that's what Shackleton and his men did every single day. That was their anthem, their theme song. There was even a point where they were awake for 80 hours frozen, and yes, still rowing. So how did things end?
00:02:09
Speaker
Well, I'm glad you asked. For the conclusion, part four ends on what we would loosely call a victory. Sure, multiple men are frostbitten, immobile, someone had a heart attack, and oh yeah, one guy supposedly lost a foot. But hey, they made it to an island, any island, the Elephant Island, after 497 days at sea. So you know, when some, you lose some.
00:02:39
Speaker
All right, boys. Bravo, bravo. A plus good bravo. Dude, Fled's got me inspired, man. For real. Limp Biscuit. I love it. Limp Biscuit. I was like, dude, these guys are just rowing and rowing. what ah Was that an NHL blitz or NHL hits or something like that? That was like the theme song on it. NFL Blitz. Oh, yeah. It was the hockey one, though. Yes, I remember that. So good.
00:03:08
Speaker
Gentlemen, on page 158, it states, ironically, this is the moment they had dreamed of ever since the days at Ocean Camp, but the reality was vastly different from the dream.
Expectations vs. Reality
00:03:21
Speaker
The book continues, describing how the men were faced with brutal winds, freezing spray, and ice blasts to their face. So, have you ever looked forward to something so much, only to find it completely different from what you had expected?
00:03:38
Speaker
I can't think of like an exact thing, but I know i'm I've always been someone that I think sometimes I get ah enjoy the planning part so much, ah whether it be a vacation or like an event I'm going to go to or Ruth and I are going to go to.
00:03:56
Speaker
Sometimes like the thinking about it for me is like where I get the most joy, where like when it actually happens, I'm like, am I having the fun that I thought I was going to have? um And so I think like a lot of times on trips, I feel like I put a lot of pressure on. like making it be something that it kind of, you know, takes away the the fun sometimes. Obviously, very different situation than this, you know, where there is this survival scenario. I think that a lot of life can be that way, though, where like when I guess one that I think of now that I'm thinking it more is like when I finished graduate school, remember when I was weeks away and maybe a month away from graduating? And I remember just thinking, this isn't how I thought it would feel.
00:04:38
Speaker
I think I thought I would feel like ready and like I knew the things and I was like all prepared, but like the reality is is like I was just at the beginning of something. And so I think that I'm definitely someone who puts a lot of like pressure and weight on what things are going to look like. When I think about this expedition that they go on, I would have had these very idealistic views of what landing on an island was going to be like, but it obviously was very miserable sounding you know you think of these huge cliffs overlooking the ocean and the waves are crashing against the these cliffs that are i think it's like 800 feet tall and it's sleeting and snowing and just sounds truly miserable
00:05:20
Speaker
Yeah, I feel like I'm trying to think of a comparative story, but I've never been to Antarctica on a wooden ship and stuck out
Unexpected Travel Experiences
00:05:27
Speaker
at sea for 500 days. So I need to like reframe how to answer this question. And I can think of many much smaller in scale moments where I'm just an expectations person.
00:05:40
Speaker
So I can't think of anything drastic, but whether it's from what you think a job is going to be like, and then it might not pan out that way. Or if you're expecting something, if you're going on a date and it doesn't go, you know, or, or on the opposite end, where I think of almost like the inverse. I remember when I was studying abroad.
00:06:06
Speaker
Uh, miles fig and I shout out to miles fig went to Korea on a three day weekend trip. And he's like, Hey, we need to go to the DMC, the D mill or DMZ, the demilitarized zone. And I was like, yeah, okay, whatever. Yeah. Uh, whatever that is. And I just tagged along for the ride. And then like, when we were there and then like the tour guide was sharing more and more, I realized, holy cow, this is.
00:06:36
Speaker
Unreal. I can't believe I'm here experiencing this. So almost like the inverse where I had almost no expectations was just kind of along for the ride and then blown away. But as an expectations person, yeah, I think I can think of several instances in my life, whether it's parenting instances, instances in my marriage or work.
00:07:01
Speaker
The everyday things of life where you expect something and you look forward to a vacation, like stay on said, and then something doesn't go the way that you want it to. And then it kind of can unravel or just go in a complete opposite direction than you anticipated. and Yeah, I can agree. I mean, I tell Marianne one of the things that is like a big pet peeve of mine is the whole expectations versus reality. Like I hate surprises where someone's going to tell me that it's going to be this way. Like, you know, whether you're buying something or whatever, and then it ends up coming out being completely different. Right. And it's like, well, hold up. You just told me it was going to be this and now it's that.
00:07:42
Speaker
But the whole expectations versus reality in terms of the. The job so like the job hunter the move process i definitely become more cautious around thinking that something is going to solve my problems.
00:08:01
Speaker
you know, you make these moves of, okay, well, if only I'm in a bigger city, or if only I'm doing, you know, like I can get away from this job so that I could do this job. And it's like,
00:08:14
Speaker
I think you guys hear like the grass isn't always greener on the other side. It's, and I would agree with that to an extent, um, not from a pessimistic standpoint, but just that sometimes it's just straight up different grass. Um, and we think that, you know, things are going to
Marriage Insights
00:08:31
Speaker
solve our problems when in all reality, it's just.
00:08:35
Speaker
maybe a different set of problems. So I think the naivety behind thinking that if I just change these few things, it's like all my problems are going to be fixed. I've become more cautious of thinking that way. Um, maybe when I was younger, I thought that, but I think of dating with this question a lot because it's like in the beginning stages of dating, it's hot, it's hot, it's hot. Oh, I can picture myself with this person. This is the one. And then all of a sudden it's freezing cold like Antarctica.
00:09:11
Speaker
A couple of things that come to mind. One is a quick story of when I was drumming at our church in Ozark. It was after a really good Sunday. It was gonna be the last song of the day. We had a really good worship set so far. And I was counting off the last song. So I clicked my sticks. One, two, three, four. And it was supposed to be a big intro. So I hit the crash cymbals really hard, ready to play, ready to get going. As soon as I hit the crash cymbals, no one else played.
00:09:46
Speaker
It was just dead silent. And I was like, what what happened? Why didn't anyone play? Why did this happen? And then I see the pastor like walking up to the stage. Apparently, when he walks up to the stage in between the previous song and the last song, that means we're done.
00:10:10
Speaker
So I did not see him I did not see him walk up and everyone is staring at me and I was so embarrassed a Talk about talk about an epic intro though for the pastor like yeah embarrassing but did you remember gets it
00:10:37
Speaker
So today we're going to be reading out of Lamentations.
00:10:43
Speaker
Um, yeah, that was fun. It's a, it's a funny story now, but as super embarrassing at the time, but dust man, but that the other experience I could think of is Emily and I did a trip to Italy a few years ago and visiting Venice.
00:11:07
Speaker
was not what I expected. but We had already gone to Florence, which was incredible. You get to experience the culture and the food and art and all this amazing stuff. And I was really looking to forward to Venice just from movies and stuff. You'd see that it's like this super romantic place. You ride one of those gondolas and I was expecting the culture to be kind of more like Florence, which is great, but we got there.
00:11:33
Speaker
Well, he went in the spring, so it wasn't as crowded, but it was just, it was raining the entire time. There were hundreds of these gondolas, you know, those boats with like the rower person in the back. They cost so much money to ride one and they're... Like how much? Uh, it's been years. An arm and a leg. Two, more than I wanted to spend for boat ride. We ended up doing one just for the experience.
00:12:04
Speaker
Um, but it's so touristy, so touristy there. And just with the weather, it wasn't all that fun and they're getting around. They don't have any streets for cars or bikes or anything. You can only walk and navigating that city is so confusing. You don't know where you're going, especially if you don't read Italian.
00:12:29
Speaker
So trying to figure out where to go was very confusing. And we were just kind of bummed that it wasn't as romantic as it seemed like it should have been, or even just as fun as it was a real disappointment. I'm glad we went because it might not be in existence in the next 60 years.
00:12:51
Speaker
because it might flood, but yeah yeah, it was just kind of disappointing. Well, speaking of large bodies of water, floods, et cetera, I think I've shared this quote before, but I once heard it. Nothing is more powerful than water in motion. And this chapter really brings that idea to life. The powerful winds and waves force the men to change their destination five times.
00:13:20
Speaker
Have you ever faced a force working against you so strongly despite your efforts? If so, what was the context of the situation? How did you overcome it? Okay, so I will jokes aside, be open up a little bit and be vulnerable, but this kind of lumps question one and question two, but my first year of marriage was probably one that would fall into both camps.
00:13:48
Speaker
I, up until I had gotten married, I'd been someone who if I tried hard enough, if I really put my mind to something in general, I could be successful, whether it was.
00:14:01
Speaker
running for a leadership position, trying to get good grades, working, applying for a job. So I think I kind of went into marriage with the same kind of assumption. Like, okay, you got to do these things that make you a good husband. And then boom, that out pops the math equation of having a good marriage. And there were some literal extenuating circumstances. Our first year of marriage was abroad.
00:14:30
Speaker
in a different country, not like Canada, like other side of the world, which is probably not advisable. And that's just a very there are a lot of it external forces that made working towards a good marriage a lot more challenging. And I remember distinctly this moment. This was, you know, 10 years ago now.
00:14:57
Speaker
I would use, I'd go to the ATM, uh, to pull out cash for our budget every week or every other week or how often it was. And the ATMs at the time when you put your card in and it keeps it and you have to like pull it out nowadays, it tells you to take your card before it gives you the cash. But at the time you just had to remember.
00:15:22
Speaker
And it had been a ah rough couple of months, like some rude awakenings and in marriage of like, Oh wow, I have some serious character flaws. And then we moved abroad that added some layers of complexity and fights and just not how you expect your first few months of marriage to go. And I remember leaving that ATM and realizing I left my debit card.
00:15:47
Speaker
in the ATM and I run back like sprinting. And if you forget it, I apparently like it just like then takes the card and like sucks it into the ATM so no one can steal it. So I was like sprinting back and I was too late. The the card was gone. So i'm it was kind of like this final straw where I just I distinctly remember walking away from the ATM towards our apartment.
00:16:15
Speaker
And like having this understanding, like it clicking in my head, like for the first time in my life, no matter how hard I am trying, I am failing at what I'm doing. Like I am not being a good husband. Like, and I, like, I, that was kind of like the throwing the hands up moment. Like, I don't know what to do.
00:16:39
Speaker
And I had never really been in that moment, that spot before. And that ATM losing your debit card in another country, your access to cash in the short term, I was like, all right, Lord, I don't know what to do. Like I'm literally at a, at the end of the road kind of thing. So that was something that came to mind.
00:17:01
Speaker
Thanks for sharing Garrett. Yeah, I think when it comes to Rob with what you're mentioning, I just came at can imagine that being so frustrating being, I mean, just put yourself in that situation to be on this boat. You have this idea in mind of where you're going and then they look and you're not even close to where you thought you were. And you're kind of putting your hope in something and it keeps moving. And yeah, that situation just sounds really dreadful. and Were they in the boat for like five days, six
Surviving at Sea
00:17:26
Speaker
days, something like that?
00:17:27
Speaker
It was about five days they had slept for 80 hours at one point. Yeah. Yeah. Just not knowing where you're going, not knowing where you are, not knowing when you're going to get out of the boat. No, it just sounds awful. I think that as I've lived more life in relation, I kind of relationship dynamics and I really did specifically to to family. I think as you asked this, Rob, it reminds me of just how.
00:17:50
Speaker
I love my family, that Ruth's family. We get along really well, but there's just a lot of things with family that happen that you can't control. And I think for Ruth and I, like we had, it took us a couple of years to to get pregnant. And that was definitely something where we felt no control with. And there were certain times where it was easy to trust and certain times we really struggled to trust.
00:18:09
Speaker
in that and just like believing and having the faith of whatever comes of our situation with having kids is is what's supposed to happen, what's what's going to happen. And I think through that we started having more kind of just family dynamic issues with my side of family and ruse had a family and i guess when you see it's like relationships can really messy you know garrett you allude to you know your first year of marriage and i think that just relationships in general can be very challenging at times you can't control how other people feel you know the more people get involved like the more complexities things can be i think about ruse family she's one of five
00:18:47
Speaker
So there are ah five in-laws, so when her family gets, like, getting the family to agree and get together on stuff, it's just, it's pretty challenging. and I think it's something that's taught me a lot about kind of letting go of control with some of this stuff. And I think trying to be content with my situation as well as like with the people that are in my life and just try to love them where they're at. I still remember one time talking to Thomas and Thomas gave this like input of the advice of basically like don't try to love who you you know you want someone to be or who you think they're supposed to be, but like love who they are. And I just thought it was a really powerful message.
00:19:28
Speaker
Nice. Thanks for sharing. I had one story that came to mind about a force working against you so strongly. So it was Anthony Savelo's bachelor party. And he was, we went to his grandma's farm.
00:19:44
Speaker
And it's like redneck stuff. So we were riding around on four wheelers and then we were lighting stuff on fire, lighting fireworks. And yeah, we were drinking. Then we decided, oh,
00:20:02
Speaker
There's a pond and there's a couple of these like row boats out, you know, like the pedal, like the pedal ones that you like use your feet to pedal on. We had gotten out there and then all I was in a boat with Chad and you guys all know Chad like he's super chill. He doesn't get like his range of emotion is very minimal. Like, you you know, he doesn't express a ton of emotion. He's cruising and it started. We were in the middle of this pond.
00:20:32
Speaker
And then it's it started to thunderstorm and lightning. And Chad, I've never seen Chad, he was just like, get me the f out of this boat. you know It's like ready to, she was ready to jump off the boat and we had like the paddles too. So we were like trying to get off and we were going absolutely nowhere. And he was like, get me out of this. He was literally going to jump out of the boat. And I felt like we were, you know, on the banks of Normandy, world war, whatever, you know, like trying to get out of this. That was three, Rob, four or three. Yeah. And no matter how much.
00:21:11
Speaker
you know muscle we applied our boat when absolutely nowhere and and chat and ended up jumping i think off of the boat um like falling into like the water in like close to the bank and getting off because he was like i'm not about to get struck by lightning.
00:21:29
Speaker
Yeah, I really can't imagine Chad reacting that way at all. 100%. It's still to this day, it's a core memory for me. of yeah i've I've never seen him go so like chill, fun guy Chad to be you know crazy. But then you know another force I think is just like the force of sin, just whether it's you know sexual sin or Um, anger, it's like, okay, I'm gonna, I'm gonna handle this situation better next time. And then next time comes and you're not able over to come it. Uh, you react the same way. You don't respond the way that you want to, that you've game plan to respond for the next time. And it's an uphill battle and, and Satan has kind of your, his grasp on you. And so that's definitely something that I thought about when, uh, when I thought about that question. That's great, Rob.
00:22:26
Speaker
I was going to say the forces of depression for sure. Like real depression, like where you can't move because you're. physically, like you actually i have the symptoms of it. And it can feel like you're never going to be able to overcome it.
Overcoming Depression Through Efforts
00:22:42
Speaker
And it's just basically one thing at a time. So you can get out of it. So you can do one, one habit that helps. And then that kind of pushes you forward a little bit more. And you do the next thing and then it's like a little bit forward a little bit more. Next thing and then by you know, by the time you know it, you're kind of out of it, out of that moment.
00:23:02
Speaker
Like you're saying one step forward, two steps back kind of deal. Kind of and how it is. Yeah. Been a while since I felt that thankfully. Yeah. My first job out of college and was at a big corporation. I truly didn't know what the job was going to be.
00:23:21
Speaker
and it ended up being a call center position for a patient portal support. So I was taking phone calls every day, all day for patients trying to access their electronic medical records online. And it was awful. It was just mostly older people who don't know how to work a computer asking how they can get their medical records. And we're like,
00:23:47
Speaker
I am not a doctor. I cannot give you your medical records, but I can help you log into your patient portal. 75% of the time it was either that question or how do I reset my password? And way more often than you think, some people had no idea how to use a computer. They're like, how do I get to the internet?
00:24:11
Speaker
So doing that all day, every day, terrible. And this company, uh, at the time, I said, if you are in a position for 18 months, that's the minimum. After 18 months, you can apply for another position within the company. And so I waited my 18 months, did my, the best that I could started applying to all these other positions and never got offered a position.
00:24:37
Speaker
One, because my team that I was on, there was so much turnover that there was a hiring freeze. We could not, they didn't let us apply. And two, I had zero experience for anything else that the company actually did. Um, and so all these other departments, managers thought I had zero experience, which I had zero experience for what they actually did. So I was miserable.
00:25:04
Speaker
And was applying for different jobs for almost another year and a half after their first 18 months. And I never got any position. So you did that for three years? Just under three years. Yeah. And it was the worst job of my life. Yeah. Ended up getting a certification and outside of that company and got into an IT position after that. So.
Getting Lost: A Common Tale
00:25:34
Speaker
completely different company. And it all worked out in the end. Sure did. Yep. Finally, men are often stereotyped as not asking for directions. While smartphones make it easier to avoid getting lost these days, when was the last time you found yourself lost? How did you manage to get where you needed to go? I'm sure there have been more recent times where I was lost, but I probably had a smartphone with me, but when I was in middle school, I was out in Colorado on vacation in the summer with my family and some family friends were hiking up this mountain. And I remember going off with my brother and friend Ryan. Uh, we just started hiking up this mountain after we got out of the car.
00:26:27
Speaker
And I don't know what happened to my parents. They just kind of stayed behind. They were maybe following, but we were hiking for a while. I decided to go on ahead of my brother and the friend because they were really close in age and I was three years younger. So I went off ahead and after a while I looked back and they were not with me.
00:26:53
Speaker
So I'd been hiking up this mountain by myself for who knows how long as a middle schooler. And I turned back around, could not see them at all. They were nowhere to be found. So I started to panic, being left alone on this mountain, all alone by myself. And I honestly didn't know which way to go because I had taken a lot of turns by myself. Um, so I was really freaking out and I just decided to go downhill. I don't know how long I was out there. It felt like forever.
00:27:31
Speaker
um I was crying. I was frustrated. I was scared and Eventually I came to a road and I heard a van honking and it was my parents van that they had rented no kidding and my brother and Ryan they were in the car, too so I don't know when they decided to go back to the car, but they were in there as well and I I just like waited on the road and eventually I saw this van coming aside and I was like waving them down. Yeah, it's just so much relief with being found. but Oh my gosh. What was their reaction? Oh, they were terrified. They were freaking out. They're hysterical. I think they were crying too. It was an awful, awful experience. I honestly couldn't say, I don't know.
00:28:29
Speaker
It was so long ago and it's all a blur, but what should have been like three minutes? Probably. Yeah, probably. But enough time for my brother and Ryan to get back to the car and probably drive up and down the road, you know, several times, you know, for sure. Yeah. It was, that was awful. Don't hike alone. It's not fun.
00:28:54
Speaker
There was one time, I don't think many people know this, but there was one time in high school where I don't know where, where I was going, but I ended up, you know, if I, if I grew up on like a hundredth street.
00:29:10
Speaker
there would have been a hundred streets from the Missouri River and somehow I ended up all the way down at this sketchy park which was known where like the albinos hang out and stuff and it's haunted.
00:29:25
Speaker
But I ended up like down there by the river and I called my parents and I was like, hey, I'm down by Hummel Park. I don't know how the hell to get home. Cause this was before like smartphones. This was before like navigation on your car. And my mom, you know, she's a worrier and she didn't know where I was. So I didn't even know where I was, except I knew I was down by the river. And she was like, well, hang up and call 911.
00:29:55
Speaker
So I hung up and I called 911 and I was like, I'm, I'm lost. I'm down by Hummel park. And they were like, okay, they pulled me up and they had me like they knew exactly where I was. And they were like, all right, you're gonna, you're gonna see this sign. You're gonna want to take that left. You see that? Okay. Yeah, I'm doing it. Okay. And now you're going to keep going straight and you're going to take this exit. And they stayed on the line with me for like,
00:30:22
Speaker
five, 10 minutes before I knew where I needed to go. And I honestly, I mean, it's kind of silly that I called 911 on myself, but I ended up getting where I needed to go, which is just crazy, man. Those dispatchers are amazing. Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, that's for sure. Yeah. When I was in Boy Scouts, my dad and I went on One of the extreme campout options that they offer, probably the most popular one you may have heard of is Philmont. It's like a big backpacking trip. I did not do that one. We went to Minnesota in the winter. Oddly resembles something similar like this. And we camped out on a lake.
00:31:09
Speaker
I think it was frozen. We camped out on a lake and one of the days we went on a hike and our, we had a guide, like a guy who was employed at that camp post and he was responsible for the entire unit, the scouts and the dads to get him out there, have a good time, bring him back. But we camped in the equivalent of like igloos. Like we made a big snow hut and camped in it. It was, it was, and it was extreme camping.
00:31:38
Speaker
And we went on a hike to Canada. Like, uh, apparently we were super close to the Canadian border and our guide really wanted to do the hike. He got us lost. So we are hiking and I'm young. I'm probably 13. So my dad knows what's going on. I'm just a kid. I'm just kind of following along, but there gets to be a point where we're going to run out of daylight.
00:32:07
Speaker
And we're tired. We're all grouchy because we thought this was going to be a few hours worth of a hike. We've been hiking now for who knows how long and we don't know if we're going to make it back to camp and with light left.
00:32:21
Speaker
And I didn't have to manage myself out of that situation because there were adults and a paid staff member there. But that was probably the most legitimate lost experience where it's like, what are we going to do if it's nighttime and we're out in the middle of Minnesota in the snowing, freezing weather? Like, are we going to have to fight off wolves and stuff? You know, so thankfully it didn't come to that point, but.
00:32:50
Speaker
Yeah, my dad shared his displeasure with that guide after we left. That is the guy who's supposed to be in charge of us get lost. Goodness. Yeah, man. This chapter was gnarly though. I would have been so frustrated. You're telling me that I'm frozen to death and we thought we were going one direction and we ended up going completely opposite. Like, wow.
00:33:21
Speaker
That was just, I mean, I know we get into it a little bit more in upcoming chapters, but I mean, I'm surprised not more guys. I'm surprised no one's not dead yet, you know? Like these are extreme conditions. it's It's wild, but anyways, they're on land. We're gonna find out what's going on next.