"We Get To Carry Each Other"

Photo by Josh Gordon on Unsplash

I was doing an Interval workout on the treadmill recently, following along with an online trainer (i.e. where you alternate bursts of high intensity effort with periods of lower effort).

At one point, having just completed a particularly intense interval, the trainer announced, “Well, that was a tough one. And we get to do that two more times!”

It was a curious choice of words. We get to do that two more times. Not we have to, or we need to. We get to. 

It was something to look forward to, something that should motivate us, get us excited. It wasn’t something we should dread. Those upcoming intervals added to us, they didn’t take anything away.

Of course, those words were intentional choices. 

Like when Bono sings on the song “One” from U2’s 1991 masterpiece, Achtung Baby, “We’re one, but we’re not the same. We get to carry each other, carry each other....”. 

For many years, I thought he said we have to carry each other. But that’s not at all what he said or meant. What he meant was that, despite the hardships and difficulties of our most intimate relationships, carrying each other through those tough times is a privilege, not a hardship. It’s something we get to do. It is the price and the reward, in that we can offer of ourselves in that manner.

It’s the same intent that that trainer had when she said, we get to do that interval two more times. We were doing ourselves a service.

That sort of self talk seems small, inconsequential, almost a throwaway line, but it’s not. It’s essential because it governs our mindset and our response. It rewires how we perceive our situation, and whether we are trudging through it or rising to the occasion. 

That sort of self talk defined what we do, how well we do it.

It’s a reminder that that sort of self talk ultimately defines who we are and who we become.