Mike Tyson has nothing on you.

Resilience you didn't know you've shown.

I don’t really like boxing.

Take the most complex machine ever invented, that is the consistency of butter at room temperature (true fact), and pop it in a skull. Then have someone punch it for 12 rounds, or shorter if the machine’s owner is a less skilled dodger.

No thanks. What a waste.

However, the recent experiment of a 58-year-old Mike Tyson fighting a 27-year-old, Jake Paul, had many intrigued, including me. On a walk this week, my mate and I wondered aloud if there was any amount of cash that would see us step in the ring with Mike, even at his age.

My mate relayed his story of his 6-year-old son punching him in the guts with boxing gloves on and it genuinely hurting and leaving a bruise. I retorted with my own story, far more stupid - me at 15, punching a door frame with boxing gloves on, feeling no pain in my hands at all. I then impulsively punch myself in the face, in the name of science, thinking this too won’t hurt. One fat lip later, the hypothesis was not confirmed.

After our stories, we decided that we each could cop only one punch from Mike. We’d hit the canvas and take the fight promotion money they’d offered us. I hear there is big cash in watching out of shape 38-year-old white collar professionals in the ring.

We hung up the phone and I continued my walk, wondering how anyone could take a hammering over and over like boxers do. How does a body absorb such a rattling? I put it down to specific training methods, human individual differences, and strong necks.

Then I got to the real thoughts about humans absorbing hits.

In the last ten years, my wife and I have taken some pretty serious punches to the head and body.

-Three births, all caesarians of varying scenarios. Two that would have likely been fatal without modern medicine. The first birth was touch and go - it coincided with a burst appendix and sepsis, ending in two surgeries, an ICU visit for my wife lasting 16 days, and me standing there holding a kid and not knowing what to do. The second birth, another emergency caesarian and a premature baby in the NICU for a few weeks. Birth three, plain old scheduled caesarian that came with stacks of ‘here we go again’ apprehension.

-Three workplace fires. One, an arson attack on my wife’s classroom. Another fire burned everything we owned as we lived at work.

-Death of my father.

-Death of all four of her grandparents.

-Living far away from her family.

-The loneliness of a pandemic.

-Cancer.

As I sit here now, I think through the people in my life that I love. For almost every person on the list I could name some seriously hard shizzle they have tackled or are tackling on an ongoing basis. And, I bet there are way more issues for them going on than I know.

Infertility. Death of parents and spouses. Health issues. Traumatic childhoods showing up in the present. Chronic physical pain. Parents who weren’t there. Bullying. Caring for sick and aging parents. Mental illness. Family angst. Hard marriages. Divorces. Lost friendships. Assaults. Addictions. The pain of singleness. Really sick kids.

I haven’t listed the everyday stuff that many people ride out while tackling their own list of big-ticket-sucky items. Gastro, work pressures, insecurities, interest rates, supporting others we love through their own challenges, kids not sharing…again. The list goes on.

Life is like Mike Tyson. It just keeps punching. Punching me, and punching you.

Unfortunately, the ‘one hit and grab the money’ option isn’t on the table. We have to get up again. And again. And again.

If you’ve watched the original Rocky movie with Sly Stallone, you’ll understand that he knew he couldn’t win his boxing fight. He knew he was going to keep taking hits, and his goal was just to keep getting up again and last all 12 rounds and make his name as a tough specimen of a man.

If life is Mike Tyson, then I reckon we are Rocky. Mike keeps hitting, and we have to keep getting up. If we don’t, we miss out on all the good stuff along the way.

At the end of Rocky, he got what he set out to achieve: notoriety for his toughness. People remarked and heaped praise on him during the fight that this guy just refused to quit despite his bruised and bloodied face. I haven’t actually thought of the analogy before today, but I have found it helpful throughout my life to reflect on the beatings I’ve withstood. It leads me to feel a small sense of pride that I’m still standing.

But, is that level of pride not enough? If my kid, sibling, or best mate, had withstood all the hammerings I have taken, I would genuinely remark at their resilience. I’d tell them they should walk tall and feel as strong as they truly are…and that they should consider auditioning for the next re-make of the 90s show, Gladiators. Nah, the last bit’s too far.

I don’t tell myself these positive things as strongly as I should.

In fact, sometimes I do the opposite. I question if I have what it takes to tackle the next hard challenge. The night before my first chemo infusion I feared I didn’t have the metal to do it. I often talk myself down professionally and tell myself the things I can’t do because I am “just me”.

I wonder how often others look at their own list of whacks they have taken, or are taking currently. At the string of things life has punched them in the face or ribs with.

And, I wonder how often they take this list and remind themselves of how bloody tough they are that they keep getting up off the canvas. Or…do they still see themselves as “just me”?

I propose a new societal trend. People can have their real names and nicknames. But we can all share one name: Rocky.

“Morning Rocky!”

“Ah, yes, good day to you, Rocky. How’s your mother?”

“Oh, Rocky? She’s pretty good. Bit lonely now that Dad is gone, and the arthritis is flaring up again, but she’s still the best lawn bowler in town. Makes a good scone.”

I don’t know the big-ticket-sucky list for everyone in life. But I know the average list. There’s things on it.

Grab some paper. Write yours out.

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Now, look down this list and use it for good. Redeem this list of hard things by using it as a means to remind yourself of how much of a tough unit you actually are. You have gotten up again, and again. You haven’t quit.

Mike has punched us. It sucked. It likely doubled us over. Yet, this morning when we woke, we stood up, faced him and looked him in the eyes again, despite whatever realities are on our lists.

We aren’t looking for small doses of pride, here.

What we are after is for us to see the resilient humans we truly are. See the decisions you and I have made, and strength we have shown, to keep going.

If you find that you can’t quite feel the pride in all you’ve conquered, share your list with someone else whose opinion you value and see what they say about you.

Mike has nothing on us, Rocky!

Go get your life.

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