You're in the gym. You get to the last rep in your last set of bench press. The weight feels heavy in your hands, and you're tempted to just put it down, and mark it as a failure.
But something inside you says let's continue. You wrestle with the bar, suspending it in the air, pushing it to a point of possibility. You grunt and finally push the bar up, extending your arms and placing it back in the rack.
Moments like these, you really feel alive. But they're not always quite as dramatic.
As a novice meditator, you might sit still just for five minutes. When the timer sounds, you can get up. Of course, nobody is watching or holding you accountable. You could even get up before the timer sounds, and nobody would know.
But you persist, and when the alarm goes off you decide to sit a little longer, just for 30 more seconds to enjoy whatever is happening in your mind and body.
In those moments, you begin to let go of your idea of the person you thought you were. It's that little bit extra that makes all the difference.
