A few years back, my son Levi was in the throws of getting ready to enter the United States Airforce.

During that period of time, he was following a specific workout regimen. The sole purpose of the program was to prepare him for the physical beat down he was sure to endure through his chosen Special Forces pathway.

As a parallel track to this pathway, he spent a lot of time trying to figure out how to endure the harsh mental abuse environment he was certain to experience.

In boot camp and the subsequent schooling particularly akin to the Special Forces or Marine Corp branches, there is a lot of physical testing. However, as both the boys have learned, it’s actually not how physically strong you are, even if you are superior in all respects to all of your peers. Instead, it’s how well you can endure the mental aspect of the program.

In other words, are you going to quit?

Will the people in charge of your training get you, through severe mental hardships, through sleep depravation, through severe hunger, through unbelievable circumstances they manufacture, get you to quit.

There are a number of reasons for this I presume.

Not the least of which is to make sure to the best of their ability that when the going gets ugly and you are on your own facing untold enemies, you will not abandon your fellow brothers. You will stay the course. You will not quit.

Some of the biggest, strongest men on the planet are reduced to a sobbing mess of flesh in these training camps and various week long exercises. It’s an amazing thing to me that it always boils down less to the physical prowess and more to the intense ability to not lose focus and simply a refusal to quit.

As Levi did all he could to learn about this he ran across a Special Forces operative retired with a channel on Youtube.

Levi took away one bit of advice which is, what I believe to be, the single best piece of advice he received going into the program.

This advice applies to all of us and I want to share it with you now.

“Focus solely on getting to lunch”

Let me explain.

This former SOCOM operative made this observation.

Regardless of what they do, what they put you through, no matter how scared you are or how much pain you are in at THAT MOMENT, they have to, by military code give you lunch. It’s required they give you a lunch break, then a dinner break.

His angle was/is, just focus on the fact that what you are going through WILL end, if for no other reason that you will be provided a lunch break.

This came up for me because I personally am going through some very trying, difficult, mental and emotional challenges and have been for a few years.

At times it’s worse than others. Right now is a worse time.

When in the middle of situations that cause my temper and rage to be tested, those which give me cause to want to quit it all, I am reminded that I only need to get to lunch.

Get to lunch.

The pain will end at some point. It has to.

Even if getting to lunch for me means the day I die and enter the gates of heaven, that time for me will undeniably come as it will for you too.

I type this to tell you;

No matter what you are facing right now, you must not quit.

No matter how hard it is, you must keep putting one foot in front of the other.

The human spirit is more able to endure than must of us understand.

Jesus himself set for us this example when he endured the beatings and ultimately crucifixion on the cross at the hands of the Romans. The apostles, and many who followed, burned at the stake, skinned alive, you name it.

Want a closer to home example?

Today, just today, I was talking to yet another of our good customers who served in Vietnam. He told us a story of a big guy, “grass fed dude, huge” was his wording.

In the middle of an absolute cluster F of a situation in the war zone they were working to get out of there. This big burly hulk of a cow tipping, hay bailer carried two men on his shoulders for a mile and a half out of there. They were both wounded.

When he had them safe, he sat down and mentioned he was tired. They took of his coat to expose he had been shot 5 times across his torso, all the way through. He lived and is alive today to tell the story.

My friend was all teary eyed telling the story…from 50 years ago.

I love these men. They constantly help me to realign my own personal self pity parties and to remember that they are humans just like me. I need to shut up and stand up and keep up.

Maybe you’re face down in the proverbial mud, physically exhausted while someone is screaming in your face to give them one more push up, but you just can’t.

Try anyway.

That’s the goal.

And keep trying damnit; until lunch comes.

You can do it. You must do it.

Wise words from Yoda “Do, or do not. There is no try”.

~rob out

PS Being alive and being human is tough. It really is, and I get it. We must not let it get us to a place of quitting, as hard as it may be. Take one step at a time. Sometimes, it’s only a matter of stopping, taking a few deep breaths, and reminding yourself that you can do it. You’ve been through worse, and the test will, and I mean WILL pass.