What it Feels Like to Look Outside From the Inside and Think, "I want to do that, but I can't."

In 22 years of living, I've had four major surgeries to repair my knee, arm and clean various infections.

One month ago, I had my last major knee surgery. It doesn't hurt. It just feels the worst.

I look at the mountains I used to climb every Friday and look away quickly with a slight frown on my zitted face. Poor me, I think. Poor, poor me.

There are a few crazy parts of me that become selfish and act like I'm never going to heal. There are parts of me that act like I don't have access to the top of the line exercise equipment, physical therapists, surgeons and drugs.

Then, there are parts of me that know I'll be fine, but can't wait for that moment.

Anytime someone jogs by me on the street while talking on a cell phone, or rides a bike past me without wearing a helmet, weary of ruining some daily hairstyle, I feel like breaking their legs.

I feel like giving that person a taste of what so many people go through.

It isn't because I'm bitter. I've thought about this. I don't envy the people who can do these things, and I understand that I'm only seeing them in one context, but I know that many of these people have never experienced real pain.

How can I say that? Right. Let me explain:

I can do anything I want because I'm young, capable, educated and strong. I knew that immediately after my doctor told me I wouldn't walk for a long time when I was sixteen years old.

And I'm not turning into a motivational douche-bag either. I'll never be that preacher.

Anyway, when any person hears someone with any sort of knowledge tell them something sounding almost sadistic about their own human condition, their real human starts to come out.

I couldn't see any light, I didn't think breakfast tasted any better the next day but I did identify with a lifestyle that I never knew existed. I felt like I knew why so many of my capable human buddies wasted days on a couch in front of a screen with a controller in their hands. I felt like anyone who got the ass end of life handed to them since they were born were more capable and smart than I ever could be.

I felt like I'd been given a chance to exploit a life I never knew I had.

All those friends I have in Kenya, all those girls I lived with in Guatemala, all those kids that chased my truck in Uganda–at least, a lot of them, don't let me be too general–knew the life they had and would seize any opportunity to exploit it the way every human should.

But, a lot of the time, they can't. Don't worry. It's not because joggers talk on cell phones or people ride motorcycles without helmets. There are a billion reasons why everyone is different and a billion different forces as to why everyone isn't on top.

And everyone knows, somewhere, that they can be on top of whatever it is they need to be on top of. And it feels like looking outside from the inside and imagining what you would do if you were able to be in the mountains where you feel most human, most capable, most ingenious, most certain that you can charge your condition with the strength you didn't know you had until someone told you that you won't be doing what you love for a long time.