When you’re ready to quit

I recently retweeted a quote someone posted:

When you’re ready to quit, you’re closer than you think.  ~Avinash Wandre

There’s also one considered an old Chinese saying:

“The temptation to quit will be greatest just before you are about to succeed.”

I lived this quote (either version works) years ago and it’s something that has become part of me and I can relate to just about every aspect of life – definitely writing.

It was in the mid 80s and I did my first hike up Mount Washington with my boyfriend. It was a beautiful August day, sunny, blue skies, and we had an early start.

We made it to the treeline (when the mountain turns from forest to rock face). Everything was going well. Then, when were at the point half-way between treeline and the summit, the weather changed – and not gently. Mount Washington is known for having the ‘world’s worst weather.’ One minute it was blue skies and butterflies, the next it was thick mist, drop in temperature, and then as we got chilled, the wind picked up.

Decision time. Neither of us wanted to head back – we’d come so far already. We kept moving upward.

Cairns exist above treeline (small piles of rocks that mark the path), and there were painted markers on the rock face, too, every 20 feet or so. However, we couldn’t see more than two feet in front of us at a time.

This is a rock face, but not the ‘rock face’ referred to here.

Yep, we got lost. No idea where we were other than still on the rock face, and we could tell up from down, but knew there weren’t any trails into the treeline, if we were lucky enough to find treeline before a cliff.

Long, miserable, story cut short…I finally sat down on a rock and said “I quit.” I’d had enough and felt continuing to walk in the cold mist and ridiculous wind was pointless.

Seconds. Literally seconds after I quit, the wind eased, the clouds parted, and, no joke, I was sitting within feet of the Mount Washington Observatory. I could almost reach my arm out and touch the bottom of the building.

It was that moment, the moment of utter quitting due to so many physical and mental elements, when I was closest to my goal. I’ve never forgotten that.

“When you’re ready to quit, you’re closer than you think.”

It’s when you think you’ve pushed yourself as far as you can go, and that another step, or another word is not going to get you any closer, that you’re on the brink of reaching your goal.

If a story isn’t working for me (or, rather, if I’m not listening to my characters), I can push away from the keyboard or toss the pen and notebook onto the floor and suddenly know exactly what it is that I need to put on the page. I don’t recommend waiting for that moment or expecting that moment to happen, and I can’t imagine it happening too often, but, for me, things have worked out just after I reach the breaking point.

Have you ever had that invisible wall push you so hard that you quit — just to discover the solution to the challenge was “right there?” It’s quite powerful.

Lisa J. Jackson is a New England-region journalist and a year-round chocolate and iced coffee lover. She loves working with words, and helping others with their own. As Lisa Haselton, she writes fiction, co-blogs about mystery-related writing topics at Pen, Ink, and Crimes, has an award-winning blog for book reviews and author interviews, and is a chat moderator at The Writer’s Chatroom. Connect with her on LinkedIn, Facebook, or Twitter.