Fortitude

I'm not really a New Year's resolution kind of person.  This year, I tried to be more of a goal setter instead.  Funny story about that one.  

I wrote down a few goals for different areas of life.  One of my goals in the area of health and fitness was...  are you ready?...  to do the splits.  I had been exercising to youtube in my room, and it just came up some how.  So I decided that if I worked on it every night, I could do the splits in 2 weeks.  I was doing great.  About a week into it I was 6 inches off the ground and I pulled my muscle right where the ham meets the glut. So much for that one.  Maybe that's why I've never set resolutions for myself, because they just never seem to work out.

What does that have to do with fortitude you ask?  Well, another goal happened upon me in the month of April.  You may or may not know, but April is the hot season here in Cambodia.  It's a scorcher, an inferno, like the inside of a rice steamer. We all have AC's in our rooms, but don't use them generally because the electricity is pretty expensive here. So we hold out all year until April rolls around and then fire up the engines on those cooling machines at night and enjoy a bit of wonderful, refreshing, glorious cool air.  Did I mention how gloriously refreshing and delightful cool air is?  

Only when April rolled around I never turned on my AC.  Initially it was because I have a window that's permanently open to allow the internet cable into our house from the telephone pole out on the street (because that's how they do things here in Cambodia).  So I bought an extra roll of parchment paper and a roll of clear tape and planned to paper over my window from the inside so that it would seal in the cool air.  Somehow that just never happened.  Then it occurred to me, could I make it through April without using my AC?  Heaven knows there's a large portion of the population that survives just fine without it.  If they can do it, I can do it, right?  So a new goal came my way.  Make it through April, the hottest month without turning on my AC.  

Well, it's May now and I'm happy to report that I haven't used the AC once.  I'm not a purist.  I had the help of some ice packs and refrigerated cloths.  I even considered putting my PJ's and sheets in the freezer before bedtime, but I never had to resort to that.  I also have 2 fans that blow on me from every direction.

There's been some light showers this last week to cool things down a bit and rinse the dust off the land.  I've reached a whole new level of thankfulness.

Here are some general thoughts from the boiler room.  If you can endure the worst of the it (fill in the blank with your own version, hot season, etc.), everything else won't seem as bad.  I've found that sometimes it's okay to make yourself uncomfortable, then when life gets unpleasant it won't be such a shock to the system.  

for·ti·tude

 noun \ˈfȯr-tə-ˌtüd\

1: mental strength and courage that allows someone to face danger, pain, etc. (AND CAMBODIAN HEAT WAVES)