You Don’t Quit!
Yes, in those times your head will play games with you, and it will convince you to quit. It will give you every reason to quit. I even entertained those ideas, and you can entertain them if you know who you are. I was standing on those runners going across that big, frozen lake, colder than all get out, with the wind blowing; and I couldn’t see anything. Pitch black as black can get. And I said to myself, “If I quit right now, nobody would fault me.” Right? Mary would be happy. She would jump up and down with joy because I had enough sense to quit.
But there were two little things that just came in this side of the brain. One was, “But Gary, how would you explain that to Jacob and Josef?” And then the next one was, “How would you explain to all of your members, if you quit? Because you’re not a quitter.”
So, here’s the key: When you get to that point where you feel like you can’t do it anymore, then you find a reason. You reach down inside of you and find a reason to do it. Even if you have to fabricate a reason to keep yourself pushing and persevering forward. You don’t quit.
Even at one point, as I was alone out there, not knowing what was happening, I could feel my heart was doing things it wasn’t supposed to do, and the thought did cross my mind, “I could die and nobody would even know where I was.” Two different times I missed the trail and had to stop and turn my dogs and get back on the trail. If I was out on one of those other places, they would not find me for maybe a day or two, who knows? Those thoughts went through my mind.
