Turkey Mountain Hike. Pain creates Happiness.

Lovin’ this Spring weather.  I feel like a bear emerging from his den.  Or an isolated mountain man suffering from cabin fever re-entering normal existence.  SAD is sad.  Seasonal Affective Disorder that is.  And I think most of us get hit by it in the winter months, and that 80% of it is preventable if our elected officials would pull their heads out of their *** and abolish once and for Daylight Savings Time.  I know I’m a Traditionalist, but I think that’s one tradition that needs to be abolished.

So I could literally feel my serotonin, dopamine, and cortisol levels re-balancing as we ascended steep, rocky hiking trails a few hundred feet up Turkey Mountain in Tulsa, which is now the #1 hiking spot for Tulsans.  Flowering red bud trees cheered me on as I broke a good sweat up the hill, with a hiking stick in one hand and my Dauchshund Peanut’s leash in the other.  

Turkey Mountain

Tulsa, OK

And each climb to a higher elevation I hit it pretty hard, David Goggins-style (watch his life story on Joe Rogan’s podcast).   The trail was muddy, but as Goggins, a quiet Navy Seal, says, the key to peace, health, and happiness is doing daily challenges that are doable but very hard.  He preaches, like a Catholic, which I suspect he is from a google search, that we must go through major pain and suffering every single day until we die, to be our true selves.  He’s got his own podcast which I highly recommend. 

David Goggins

Happy weekend. And blessed Lent.