For this week’s article, I decided to move away from my traditional format and dive into something that’s been on my mind for a while.

That is perseverance.

As a 20-year-old, I was deployed to Iraq from 2004 to 2006.

I knew why I signed up for the Marines right after 9/11. I knew a combat deployment was on the horizon.

But I had no idea what I was getting myself into.

I had no idea how terrifying war is and ungodly it is.

In those trying times of disarray and chaos, I found that some of the best life lessons I learned and the best relationships I made came from being in the most horrific of environments.

In a war zone, there are good days and those days consist of coming back to base alive and not losing anyone in your unit. The good days consisted of a 2 min hot shower and being able to eat a hot meal, even if it was the same course as yesterday.

And then there are the bad days. The days when someone got hurt by an IED or land mind.

There are days when you miss home, home-cooked meals, and drinking beers with your friends.

There are days when you wish you had never deployed to war in the first place.

I had more bad days than good days in the war. What got me through those bad days was a concept called shared misery. During those days in the sandbox, as we called Iraq, being stuck out in the most miserable conditions created deep bonds with my fellow Marines.

It made the suck not as bad. Sharing misery made complaining cathartic. It made the days go by faster.

It made war bearable.

Trying to find that on the homefront after I got out of the military was a road filled with multiple twists and turns I did not anticipate. I found myself in group settings, often feeling alone.

I felt I had to put a front on in public to mask what was happening underneath.

Sometimes, I felt myself drifting further from the day-to-day into a dark pit with no way out.

It was a battle much different than the one I fought overseas.

It was a battle of the self.

Whenever I took part in training ops for the Marines, there was always one motivating senior Marine shouting in a prophetic nature to the rest of the unit.

“Conditions will always not be favorable. You must embrace the suck.”

And I remembered that saying when I went through intensive therapy for Combat PTSD.

I remembered those words when I bought a one-way ticket to New York to start a new chapter in my life.

I remembered that saying when COVID hit and shut down the world.

Whenever I stepped into the experience of the most intensive and miserable times, I found another level of perseverance and strength.

I kept showing up for therapy no matter how hard it got.

I hit the streets of New York, reinvigorated to change the course of my life.

I continue to double down on my self-growth while in lockdown.

And I found happiness. I found joy and contentment for the first time in my life.

Now, this doesn’t mean that these changes are permanent. Instead, these are things I continue to work on. I know what it means to be in the pit of despair, embracing unfavorable conditions, and persevering onward regardless.

Embracing the suck is not just a saying. It’s a lifestyle. It’s an attitude. It’s a way of facing life's adversity and deciding to make it comfortable despite the conditions.

It’s saying to yourself that you will thrive no matter what life throws at you.

But here is the thing with embracing the suck. There is no hack to reaping the benefits.

There are no shortcuts nor an in-depth playbook or framework to implement.

There is only one way, and that is to embrace.

You must feel yourself in the conditions of the situation. Whatever life throws at you, you must believe you will come out of it better than you went into it.

That, to me, is what embracing the suck is all about; persevering in the toughest of storms to experience the day after the storm has passed.

It’s tough to do this. It’s tough to remember when you’re in what seems to be the most trying of times.

And what’s gotten me through these times was trusting myself. I knew deep down, no matter how hard, how tough something was for me, even though I couldn’t see it, I was going to be ok.

I remember those times in Iraq on a convoy remembering that I was going to be ok and I was going to make it home. Even though there were times when I was stuck on the road for hours on end waiting for EOD to detonate a land mine we found.

And times when I had to sleep outside on top of a fuel container in the middle of a desert winter, surprise snow graced me with its presence.

I trusted myself for things to be ok and be able to endure.

My friends, if there is anything that I want you to take away from this post, it is this.

It’s ok for you not to be ok. We all have our down moments, our dark times.

We have the days we wish we would repeat and live repeatedly.

We have our days we wish never existed.

What matters is that you keep fighting.

You keep your head up, trust yourself, and believe you will be ok.

When you embrace the suck, you will have better days ahead.

_____

My latest book, The Road Ahead and Miles Behind A Story of Healing and Redemption Between Father and Son is available for purchase.

About the Book

A story of a cross-country road trip taken during the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic, The Road Ahead and Miles Behind, shares the intricate yet beautiful nature between a father and son looking to reconcile their differences and amend a challenging past.

The Road Ahead and Miles Behind is full of inspiring moments and perspectives that demonstrate the healing power of hard conversations with those you love. It's a story that will remind you it's never too late to have something with your parents.

Buy your copy on Amazon or Barnes and Noble