Back in January, I wrote about attitude — how it sets the tone for every fight, big or small. This post is the next chapter in that same battle. Because sometimes, attitude isn’t just about how you show up… it’s about refusing to walk away, even when the easiest option is to let go.
The throbbing in my right hip woke me up at 4:30 in the morning. Normally, the 8-hour acetaminophen I take before bed gets me through the night. That wasn’t the case here. A lot was running through my head. I had obligations this Saturday — some to me, some to others. And the other thoughts that come with this pain started creeping in.
It’s not new. I felt it for the last four months of 2024. It eased after a few rounds of chemo around Christmas, but lately it’s been working its way back. We’re on a new treatment plan these days, and I’ve been feeling good, but there’s always that “what if” floating around.
I got out of bed at 6, took ibuprofen (I alternate), and fed our dogs and cat. The painkillers kicked in and by 7:30 my wife and I were walking the puppy. The more I moved, the better it felt. On that walk, I thought about the promises I’d made to myself at the start of the week. Getting to the gym was non-negotiable — and I’d only gone on Monday. Now it was
Saturday. I decided I could still keep my word by going today. That’s what this was about: mindset. Promises made, promises kept. Maybe a little defiance too — I’ve read cancer isn’t fond of exercise. And I’m not fond of cancer.
Somewhere during the six-minute drive to the gym, the emotions hit. It was the fifth anniversary of my mother’s passing. I was mentally exhausted from the week. Add the FU message I was sending to the disease that refuses to vacate the premises, and it made for a moment. I parked the truck and sat there a few minutes, frozen.
The first thing that came to mind was the poem — Don’t Quit. I’ve had it memorized since I was a teenager. I’m pretty certain my mother was the first to share it with me, which made the timing sting even more.
The next thing that popped into my head was the Rodney Atkins song — If You’re Going Through Hell — which sent a clear message. I needed to keep going. Today it would be the gym. Tomorrow would be something else. And another thing the day after that. But stopping? Stopping is not an option.
The Hell We’re Talking About
We all have our versions of hell. Sometimes it’s a disease that chews away at your body and whispers that it’s only a matter of time. Sometimes it’s losing someone who was woven into your very identity, leaving a hole so deep you can’t tell where you end and the grief begins. Sometimes it’s a season of life that strips you bare — your health, your stability, your sense of who you are — until you barely recognize the person in the mirror.
Hell has its own weather. Sometimes it’s a roaring firestorm, everything coming at you all at once. Other times it’s a slow, choking smoke that seeps in so gradually you don’t realize you’re suffocating until you’re on the floor. The details are different for everyone, but the rules are the same: you cannot live here. You don’t build a house in hell. You don’t even pitch a tent. You claw forward, inch by inch if you have to, because hell is not a destination — it’s a place you survive long enough to leave behind.
The Danger of Stopping
If you stop moving, hell closes in. That’s when the devil finds you — not the sermon version, but the force that whispers it’s not worth the fight. It’s the fatigue that convinces you to stay in bed when you know you need to get up. It’s the mental fog that makes you put off the phone call you’ve been avoiding. It’s the voice that says, Just let go. It’ll be easier.
Pausing can be rest. Pausing can be strategy. But a permanent pause? That’s quitting. And quitting doesn’t freeze you in place — it lets the flames catch you. Every step you don’t take gives hell a little more room to move in.
Keep Moving — One Foot in Front of the Other
Some days keeping going means a bold leap — starting the treatment, signing the contract, having the hard conversation you’ve been avoiding. Other days, it’s smaller: walking the dog, sending one email, folding your laundry instead of tossing it in a basket beside your bed.
I’ve had “keep moving” days where the win was knocking out three meetings in a row when my body begged for a nap. I’ve had others where the win was getting dressed, stepping outside, and feeling the sun on my face.
Big or small, the act matters. Every forward step — even inches — is a declaration that you’re still in the fight. It’s proof to yourself and to everyone watching that you haven’t surrendered.
Lessons from Before — Growing Up
As I was working on this entry, I came across something I wrote thirty years ago. I was nineteen, trying to make sense of my first year away at Boston College. I called it Growing Up. I listed everything that had gone wrong for me – and there was a lot. I thought then I’d been through hell — in fact, I described one of my roommates as “the true meaning of hell.”
Reading it now, most of it sounds like the complaints of a kid who had no idea how hard life could hit him. At the time, he had no idea that he was roughly 17 weeks away from leaving Massachusetts, the only place he’d ever lived, and boarding a one-way flight to Texas.
Honestly, I was slightly embarrassed that I had complained so much about trivial stuff.
But then I got to the last paragraph, and it stopped me cold. I’ll quote it exactly as I wrote it in 1996:
“Even with all of the negative aspects involved in my life right now, I feel I can handle whatever is thrown my way. I grew up this year. I am not entirely there yet, but I am well on my way.”
That punched me in the gut. Because there it was. The young version of who I was to become.
That strategy — believing I could handle whatever came — would be important going forward. Because even though I thought, at nineteen, I’d faced hard times, I hadn’t. Not yet. The real tests came decades later: a global pandemic that turned the world upside down and caused me to lose a job for the first time ever, and a cancer diagnosis that still challenges me every single day.
Those aren’t the kind of challenges you just “push through” in a weekend. They’re the kind that require every ounce of grit you’ve built over a lifetime — including the kind I unknowingly started building at nineteen.
Don’t Quit
Hell will tempt you to stop. It will whisper that you’ve done enough, that you’re too tired, too broken, too far gone to make it out. And the second you listen, the second you stop moving, it owns you.
I’m not here to sugarcoat it — getting out will hurt. It will cost you more than you think you have left. You will crawl. You will bleed. You will want to turn around just to make the pain stop.
But you don’t stop. You don’t pitch a tent in the fire and call it home. You drag yourself forward — an inch, a step, a leap, whatever you can manage — because every bit of ground you take is proof you’re still in the fight.
I’ve been there. More than once. And every time, these words have been a rope I could hold on to. Now I’m throwing that rope to you. If you’re not familiar with the poem I mentioned earlier, here you go:
Don’t Quit
Author: Anonymous
When things go wrong, as they sometimes will,
When the road you’re trudging seems all uphill,
When the funds are low and the debts are high,
And you want to smile, but you have to sigh,
When care is pressing you down a bit,
Rest if you must, but don’t you quit.
Life is queer with its twists and turns,
As every one of us sometimes learns,
And many a failure turns about,
When he might have won had he stuck it out;
Don’t give up though the pace seems slow —
You may succeed with another blow.
Success is failure turned inside out —
The silver tint of the clouds of doubt,
And you never can tell just how close you are,
It may be near when it seems so far;
So stick to the fight when you’re hardest hit —
It’s when things seem worst that you must not quit.
And if you can’t take another step, fine — take an inch. But take it forward.
Your bravery awes me. Many blessings and prayets