Battling Altitude and Ego While Hut Hiking the Dolomites

This pattern, common to other children of immigrants like me, is the drive to be brilliant beyond belief. To make the struggle of your parents’ lives justified. To build a sense of self-sufficiency and protection against harm, pain, being hurt. To succeed your way beyond poverty, to reach another class and lifestyle dangled before you like a carrot your whole life.

It followed me through school, through climbing the corporate ladder, through building a business and being an artist. Nothing was exempt—my relationships, both romantic and platonic, my creativity, even the way I moved (I once spent a week single-handedly moving an entire house worth of belongings, on foot, without help for no reason). 

When I started powerlifting at age 19, my unyielding obsession with perfection was a perfect match with the calorie-counting demands of bulking and cutting. Being good at exercise enabled this deeply rooted pattern of intensity and endless achievement, of running away from being still to get to yet another level, never quite satisfied at the achievements I did manage to reach.

Source: https://www.fieldmag.com/articles/hut-hiking-dolomites-essay