Every morning (well, most mornings) I listen to my MP3 player whilst I walk. The early morning walks were something I started doing twenty years ago at College, when I realised that, for me, early is bad. I’m tired, muddled and, worst of all, my whole life usually looks like one, massive, dark thunderstorm of difficulty. I’m discouraged and ready to give up before the day has started. Over time I noticed that by 10am life was not so bleak, and concluded that some of my problem is the way I’m wired: mornings are pants. But if my morning ‘funk’ (as they used to say) is wiring or chemicals or the like, then maybe there is a way to overcome it, to speed up the natural process. Get out, walk and shake up the wiring and chemicals. It was a revolution. Mornings will always be tough, but oh! the difference. 10am arrives much earlier.
The MP3 player was the next revelation: I could fill my head with something other than the dismal self-generated junk that, with malicious glee, awaited me every morning. And so I have walked and listened most mornings for years.
Today I walked and listened to something that, I hope, helps yet further. It was an interview with an author whose book recorded the lives of a legendary, crack group of marines who were present in various key arenas during World War II. He had interviewed several and when asked what one characteristic he discovered they all shared, he replied: determination, the decision to never quit. For example, one who parachuted behind enemy lines had a faulty parachute; so he braced himself and hit the ground hard. He survived but could not move his legs. On being retrieved and transported to hospital it was discovered he had a broken disk, which presented him with the ‘golden ticket’: no more war, he could go home conscience-free. Instead he worked his way back to health and got himself back to the front to continue fighting with his unit. There were other, similar stories.
Determination. It was another one of those moments. Not quitting is a decision. Now, I’ve had plenty of times when I have worked towards a goal, or dug my heels in over an issue and refused to move, come what may. But they have generally been over selected key issues, whose importance generated resolve. But what about those times when quitting seemed enforced by circumstance, when conditions robbed resolve and quitting did not seem so much a decision, but the aggregate effect of events? Now this may not come as a new idea to you, but for the first time in my life I asked: what if determination is not what you calculate having examined the odds, but is an ongoing attitude that we decide to have? What about a daily decision to not quit, to not be cowed by circumstance? The point the author was making was that these men were not simply determined to achieve a goal, they were simply determined.
For those of us who feel we fall short of World War II veterans and tend towards self-analysis, our problem may be that failure and/or a sense of inadequacy discourages us across the board, not just over the issue that produced it. We look at the failure and conclude (consciously or otherwise) that we have failed/we’d better not try again/we don’t want to let people down another time/make ourselves vulnerable etc. Maybe from this comes a subconscious conclusion that determination only arises in situations where we can see ourselves reasonably clear to succeed. And this isn’t one of them.
But surely this is a policy of diminishing returns, precisely the opposite of our intention. Such thinking robs us of confidence, motivation, clarity and energy. Or, to put it another way, it leads to nothing; because we tend to not try again, tend to increasingly assume we will fail; and not just here, where the problem occurred, but other times, places and circumstances. The fog across our vision here, drifts into every valley.
So we need to stop. And think. Pulling into our shell seems to be a fitting consequence of failure – but in reality it is simply nothing. It’s empty. It achieves zero: it won’t help. Anything. We feel that keeping quiet, or not trying again, will in some way protect us from the future; but in fact that approach is just as likely to lead to the very consequences we are trying to avoid. We shut down, and then fail to grasp opportunities, or feel listless – which then produces a further sense of failure.
Vicious circle.
Instead, take a look at those soldiers: determination, the decision to never quit. Why not us too? What’s the point of being cowed, looking down, not trying? We need to view their results when they denied ‘failure’ the right to inhibit their energy, when they decided to learn their lesson and then forget the disaster, refusing to count it as a closed door. Don’t get me wrong, there are situations where withdrawing is the only thing that will keep us in one piece. But we need clarity, to realistically evaluate which ones those are, and not permit the effects to spread across our personality or every area of life.
Strangely, the commitment to get up again tomorrow and do what needs to be done, without being unduly dampened by the past, often quietens the sepulchral voices calling for retreat to the shadows. Those voices are the worst feature of withdrawal. When we make anaesthetising those voices our priority (through hiding in mediocrity, or pulling limbs into shells) they are still influencing us. But having determination as a priority, waking in the morning and deciding that not quitting is the top priority of the day, it transpires that a considerable amount of energy was being parasitically drawn by the voices. Paradoxically, redirecting energy to the more purposeful priority of determination can make us feel stronger.
