I quit.
No, really, I quit on a regular basis. It's not usually at anything earth-shattering, but it happens. I've noticed it most recently at the gym. The treadmill is a very objective way to measure performance, so when I set a benchmark it's all to easy to see my progress, or lack thereof.
I don't understand what the difference is from day to day. For example, I've run 30 minutes at a 10 minute pace numerous times. In fact I recently ran 40 minutes at that pace. Yet, some days I end up pulling up and walking less than 15 minutes in. I don't sense that I'm hurting any more than the days that I'm more successful--I just seem to have less tolerance. Sometimes something else going on in life is bothering me so badly that I simply can't cope with the discomfort of working out.
It's very frustrating to me. I'm aware that this reveals a great deal about my character, about my mental toughness. Or rather, my mental weakness.
This pattern of quitting carries over into all aspects of my life.
Did I quit too soon when life got uncomfortable after I graduated chiropractic school? Did I give up too easily? Did a little adversity cause me to fold and abandon the profession altogether?
Why was I so quick to post about being done with my marriage? Why did I want to quit after being with my wife since 1999? Is 11 years of commitment so easy to discard?
When one of my better friends from my small group at church tries to challenge me and my faith, why do I simply consider ending the friendship? Sure he isn't particularly good at being diplomatic, and has a certain talent for getting under my skin, but he, his wife, and kids are also among my wife's, my kid's, and my better friends. Why would I simply choose to remove them from our lives?
Because I quit.
It's an embarrassing habit to admit.
This weekend at work I helped take care of a gentleman that wasn't particularly old (middle 50s). He was a relatively newly diagnosed diabetic, and he was having a hard time complying with his regimen of care. He was on our unit for a round of DKA--he came in through the ER with a sugar in the 1200s. His wife was attentive and present. And she was trying her damnedest to get him to change his ways.
We got his sugar down, but he was terribly brittle. His hourly checks were jumping all over the place, sometimes 300-400 points in an hour despite being on an continuous insulin drip. But his level of consciousness was improving and his wife was able to talk with him. Even then she remarked at how depressed he was, and we reassured her that it was just the severe blood sugar extremes his body had been dealing with.
We began having a little trouble keeping his sats up. Every time he'd doze off, he'd start de-satting, and we kept having to rouse him, get him to deep breath and cough, and crank his O2 up to keep him above 95%. We paged the pulmonologist to come take a look at the patient, to possibly discuss a planned intubation, rather than having to emergently tube him in a crisis.
When the doc walked in to assess him, the monitor started alarming. Sats were fine, but his HR was dropping. As we watched he dropped from the 60s to the 50s to the 40s. I dashed across the hall to wheel in the crash cart, and by the time I got back he was dropping from the 30s into the 20s. And he just kept dropping. All the way to asystole. Code doses of epi and atropine didn't produce so much as a wiggle in his ECG. CPR perfused him a little, but as soon as we'd let up, he was still flat-lined. After 34 minutes of coding him, his wife asked us to stop. And the doc declared him.
We were all a little shocked, and completely at a loss to explain what had happened to him to his wife. But she knew.
"He just gave up," she said.
"He quit."
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Saturday evening I went to the gym. There was only 1 other person upstairs in the cardio area when I got on the treadmill. I set a slightly slower pace than usual (5.5 mph instead of 6) just to ensure I'd make it to the end of my 30 minutes--something I'd failed to do in my previous 2 workouts. With Winston Churchill echoing in my ears I then proceeded to run for an hour, covering 5.7 miles and expending 1135 calories.
“Never give in, never give in, never; never; never; never - in nothing, great or small, large or petty - never give in except to convictions of honor and good sense."
--Winston Churchill
bold choice to be so honest. Everyone will tell you to never quit and you can read cliche after cliche hanging in the offices of high school coaches around the country but I think WC Field got it best when he said, "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again. Then quit. There's no use being a damn fool about it."
ReplyDeleteOh my goodness, what a story! You must be kinder to yourself XY, because when we have this mentality to go all or nothing we end up failing. Just take time to appreciate that life is difficult at times, and I'm not going to lie, who of any of us wouldn't want to give in and quit. But with your workout routine, all you have to do is just modify and ease up on the intensity and go for longer like you did on Saturday evening. My marriage at one time was rocky and yes we even did separate, but we didn't give up and neither did you. Friends come and go, but learning that you and your friend at church rub each other the wrong way sometimes is just that, a learning experience. If anything XY you're learning to take a deeper breath before you choose to quit and that is the difference between a quitter and someone working on the up's and downs of life. The patient you helped the other day did give up like his wife said, but we don't know his history or why he chose that. You have a heart and passion to make such an impact on other people's lives that a quitter mentality doesn't suit you, just flip gears and chose to never give up like Churchill said. Good advice and quote! Hang in there and love yourself despite your shortcomings.
ReplyDeleteYet again, you post the most timely posts to ever grace my screen. Incredible work, sir. *standing ovation*
ReplyDeleteI have the exact. same. tendencies. On a lot of things. This past weekend it manifested in my last Week 8 run. The success of my Saturday run was inversely proportional to the sweaty/stankyness of the guy running beside me. I quit way early. Sunday, didn't even bother. Today I issued myself a massive F U and got my quittiness back under control. Interesting how my desire to "just forget it" impacts so many part of my life. And the simple act of doing the run I said I'd do makes me feel like I can do everything else too...
The fact that you can admit something like that, and then to go turn things around and not give up on the things you were working on is really inspiring to me. I really was ready to stop working on the things that matter, now maybe I will think about what you had to say before I do "quit".... and oh, like "zazzy episodes" said, be kinder to yourself!!
ReplyDeleteIf there is one thing I have learnt over the last year, it is that we are our own harshest critics. What we see in ourselves is not always what others see. We see a moment of failure, while others see the strength, determination and struggle of our journey up to that moment.
ReplyDeleteAs someone with questionable 'stickability' I realise that it is incredibly hard to step back and look at the big picture, but often it is the journey that tells more about us than that one moment when we say 'I quit'. So go easy on yourself and don't reduce your life to a few moments because you are so much more than that!
Yes, this was a very lovely, if not eloquent post. I think there are many more, myself included, who would confess to quitting. There has been such a stigma placed on it that people sometimes fear it. Sometimes it is best to throw in the proverbial white towel. Why beat yourself up just to not quit, or stop something that causes pain or frustration? It doesn't always mean you'll never return to what you were doing, as it did for your pt, but sometimes you really just need to take pause. If you start something again later, did you really quit it the first time? Keep striving and you're a winner.
ReplyDeleteI'm with you. Sometimes I have to step aside, more often than quit.
ReplyDeleteOn the clock, I do not quit until I'm allowed to go. That's what's hard about nursing...you have to be there the whole shift, when sometimes you'd like to be some place else!
Need a break? Must find a way to get it...even if it's one minute.
This post show more of your character than you'll ever know.
ReplyDeleteHaving the courage to put this out there takes a great deal of mental and emotional toughness.
Don't sell yourself so short.
Thanks for sharing - and keep up the great work.
Its all about what you choose to not quit at, not what you do quit at.
ReplyDeleteI am a firm beleiver in abandoming something that causes you more harm than good.
You are no good to yourself or anyone if you're miserable.
Personally, I tend to take an approach on the complete opposite side of the spectrum. I'm often so stubborn that I'll keep doing something to prove a point, even when it causes me greif. Then again, this is all dependent on the end result. Do the means justify the ends? Usually, if not I sure do feel like an ass.
enjoyed the read.