Achieving the Impossible is, Frankly, Possible
WORDS : Alex Mitcheson
When Nedd Brockman strode across a taped finish line on Bondi Beach at 5.30 pm on the 17th of October 2022, he would forever become the man that ran across Australia. The bloke who spent 46 and a half days gruelling it out across the Lucky Country. The Aussie who jogged from Perth to Sydney and gulped Champagne back from his shoe at the finish line.
Even with 3952 kilometres of achievement between his former self and this now incredible status, what did Nedd do? He amassed a staggering 1.85 million dollars for charity for one, but underlying all of this, he subtly provoked us to question ourselves. Be honest: didn’t you — even for one second — picture yourself doing it? Out there on a lone road pounding the bitumen with an endless horizon ebbing into the distance and a smouldering sense of triumph.
For those who thought about it longer — beyond scrolling past it on social media — and
took time to ponder how much pain and suffering he went through, their thoughts would unavoidably land on the biggest quandary of all. Where on earth did all his motivation and will come from?
Humanity has achieved incredible things: we put somebody on the moon, managed to split the atom, and climbed the highest peaks. But sometimes, even rolling out of bed after your 5th alarm on a regular Wednesday morning can feel like a colossal task. The handbrake is on — what is even the point? Those who get up, show up, and pursue a goal or achieve unfathomable triumph seem to conjure an otherworldliness and foster an unfair advantage. They’re winners and born that way. With a superficial mindset, resigning yourself to this opinion and cracking open another beer is easy. But at its core, the truth couldn’t be any more different.
Getting comfortable with being uncomfortable is a sentiment many agree is a bedrock for any basic human achievement. Shortly after Brockman began his lengthy transnational stride, he had injuries to contend with, hostile conditions, sleep deprivation, and wayward road trains. Not to mention at one point, he found maggots growing under a toenail. Pain and discomfort were there with every breath. This was no lazy Sunday afternoon Netflix binge. To resist it would be futile. Even armed with an athletic physique, he would later confidently claim of his mammoth run, “it’s got nothing to do with physicality; it’s a mind game. I love challenging my body and my mind to see how far I can go.”
So by, embracing his situation and nurturing a burning curiosity about how far he could mentally push himself and where his resolve could take him — along with 10,000 calories a day — these modes of thinking would prove pivotal in his getting to Bondi. “I think 70-80% of it was like: we’re in the depths of hell,” he laughed afterwards, “and 20% of it was pretty ok.” Existing in a place between extreme distress and inquisitiveness is a formula that looks to have taken the young electrician to places mentally most would fear to tread.
In achieving lofty pursuits, the what is ours to decide, and the how we get there is imperative — but where is the why in all of this? Nineteenth-century German philosopher, Friedrich Nietzsche, tells us, “he who has a ‘why’ to live for can bear almost any how” — take a moment to let this sink in. Sourcing your steadfast personal reason to commit to a tiresome, painful undertaking means you have elevated your chances of enduring the obstacles. Be it a bride’s longing to lose weight for her wedding, a cancer survivor’s aspiration to complete
50 marathons in 50 days for charity, or a holocaust survivor’s unwavering wish to see their children again: if the why moves the individual and exists in every cell in their body, then the opinion is nothing can likely stand in their way.
To cement this notion, you can scrutinise intense cases of when why means life or death. Hysterical strength is a term used to describe incidents where somebody has displayed abnormal levels of physical power when they perceive themselves or somebody else to be in a perilous situation. There are several cases of people lifting cars off trapped victims; no explanation is offered besides their strength. The reason to lift the vehicle couldn’t have been any more important. The innate need to survive is the most potent call to action any rational- thinking human can have. How this manifests physically can ultimately lead to extraordinary events — and life-saving circumstances.
So if one could harness this train of thought and inject it towards a future version of themselves, surely anything would be possible. Perhaps. However, where is the impending sense of doom when you’re trying to shift those stubborn kilos after a week of gorging yourself over Christmas? Where’s the life-or-death scenario when you haven’t mastered Spanish as your plane touches down in Cancun? Simple: it doesn’t exist. But if you took this methodology and realised that every waking second you don’t achieve what you have set out to do is condemning you to a life of unfulfillment — actively pushing you towards what you don’t want —things start to look different. By purposely heading away from what you don’t want or what no longer serves, you will inadvertently lead yourself to the great things you desire. Don’t forget, there’s also the necessity to embrace discomfort like a lost puppy along the way.
Nedd Brockman didn’t choose to run across Australia — he chose not to be the guy who didn’t at least give it a bloody red-hot go.
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