90 Unbearably Long and Lonely Days
The discipline of determination is something that I have wrestled with many times over. Many years ago as a young woman I spent three months care-taking a huge, wild, and beautiful ranch in a little known corner of the world called Pink Mountain in Northern British Columbia, Canada. It was the middle of winter and the ranch was at the end of long valley road. I had no vehicle only a snow machine and my nearest neighbors lived ten miles farther up the valley, even more remotely than the ranch I was care-taking. In fact, to my knowledge they were the last people in B.C. to make their living solely as trappers.
One of the things I discovered during that three months season of loneliness is that when you are determined, you can do a whole lot more than you think you can. The key is to act one day at a time. I rarely saw anyone during those three months: a couple times a week my trapper friends might stop in for lunch or coffee, and every now and then a stranger showed up or my family made the trek from the city to see me. My job was simply to stay on the ranch and make sure the water pump didn’t freeze when it was 40 below zero and make sure that no one vandalized the property. Ultimately, I was tasked with enduring through the loneliest of jobs in the world with my dog as my only companion and protector. What started as a two-week commitment ultimately engaged me for 90 long, unbearably lonely days.
The Discipline of Determination
Determination is a curious thing. It is a prized virtue but difficult to acquire. And, in the microwave society that we live in it has become more elusive than ever before. The hardest job I ever had in my life became the proving ground for the prized virtue of determination. And my mind was the battleground because after a short time I wanted to quit every day. Although at the time it felt like survival, ironically, I have to come reflect on this season of my life as a time of extraordinary transformation.
Here are some of the words from my journal that fueled me in the dark days during that long cold winter. I failed to record the author’s name so I can not give them the proper credit. But, these words gave me courage to finish a daunting commitment and I pray that these words encourage you no matter what you face today.
“In the preparatory time of life the real job is not what you are working on, but what it is doing to you. You start it with a great gush of interest….then suddenly it goes stale – and you quit. Or you find that your plan is wrong – and you quit. All you have as profit from your effort is the knowledge of how to quit. “Well,” you say, “that thing wasn’t worth it.” Quite probably, but you are, and that’s the whole point.
Mr. Ford told me that when he was making his first car he was enthusiastically looking forward to great results. Then the thrill and interest evaporated because he’d gone far enough to see how he could build a second and better car, and the glowing new vision got in the way of his work. Some untaught inner wisdom must have warned him, for he forced himself on. He soon discovered he was learning more and more about his second car by going on to complete the first. He realized (by the strength of the temptation to quit) that it was precisely that -a temptation to quit, not merely an urge to do better – and had he yielded, he might have failed to finish the second car.
Another reason to quit is not because we think we see something better, but because we see nothing at all; -so why continue? Well, was this thing laid on you to do? Were your motives sound? Had you a clear right and a clear reason to start it? Very well – what has happened? Oh, a cloud has settled down and you cannot see? Well many a man has never seen the light he needed, or the work he needed, until he entered that cloud and walked through it. Following faithfully on never leads anyone into permanent darkness. But, for the quitter, all he’ll likely get is a stronger habit of quitting and a lower place to begin again. The man who will not give up, even if he fail of his objective, is led through to another objective; the man who hangs on as if he were paid to hang on can always start again at par or better – he has strengthened himself.
Most of us are where we are for a very good reason. This is our past which has no one to hold it but us. If we abandon it, we discover that it is something in ourselves we abandon. Just keeping on, through the most hopeless aspect of keeping on, may be the most important act of one’s career. The last dejected effort often becomes the winning stroke! Most people have quit too soon. Another week; a few more good licks; standing by just a little longer – and the whole situation would have opened into a larger phase.
The theatre of this drama is ourselves; the mind may forge a circumstance into a shackle, or it may lift us into the sphere where events are plastic. The power of courage and endurance to rearrange our whole relation to events is proved daily as one of our commonest experiences
In its loveliest form, this compulsion, this power, is simply the act of hanging on, plodding on, doggedly forcing oneself on for yet one hour or one more day. Quitting makes a dead end of any road -often just as it was ready to open. Transfer if you must; catch another wave-length; change your level to a higher one, but don’t quit -it is always to soon to quit.”
There are countless opportunities in our lives to become a finisher or to become a quitter. Choose to build the discipline of determination. Choose to be a finisher.
