PR Friday. Post training updates and PRs to comments.

I have a friend who is in the Army. To date, he’s been in over three years of combat deployment. Before his last deployment he went to Ranger School, a grueling 61 day combat leadership course that is known for a lack of sleep and calories. It’s typically the most difficult thing an American soldier will ever do. It’s not uncommon to lose 40 pounds in this course. All of the students don’t fantasize about women or a hot shower…they fantasize about food. Very elaborate things like Oreos dipped in chocolate or a Snickers ice-cream bar that is halfway thawed out, wrapper sweating with condensation. At the end of the course — assuming the student doesn’t get hurt or voluntarily quit — the new Ranger not only gets to eat a shit load of food, but he gets to have the Ranger tab placed on his shoulder. It must be one of the most powerful moments in their lives knowing that they accomplished this unbearable, rigorous task. Once that tab was on my friend’s shoulder, do you know what he did? He picked his eyes up, looked forward, and said, “What’s next?”

My friend had a goal set before him: pass Ranger school. Never quit. Once he completed that goal, it took him approximately two seconds before he pushed towards the next goal. Getting complacent in training is a curse, something that makes you soft. You are never good enough, strong enough. The moment you think you have “enough” of whatever it is you think you have — you have failed. The moment you think there isn’t anything left to improve — you have failed. Attack your training, and attack your weaknesses. Avoiding something because you aren’t good at it? Looks like you’ve gone soft, my friend. Strive ardently to improve; it isn’t enough to complete your training as if you were clocking in and out of work. Instead, tear open its rib cage, rip out its still beating heart, and consume it like a dangerous, dangerous animal.

What the fuck have you done lately? It doesn’t matter; you could be better.