“Pain is nothing compared to what it feels like to quit. Give everything you got today for tomorrow may never come.”—Dan Gable
Be your best today; be better tomorrow. To be better, one cannot quit.
Life can be a struggle (more likely, life is a struggle), but it is the challenges in life that give one the opportunity to grow. As Nietszche said: “That which does not kill you makes you stronger.” Embrace the struggle. Accept failure as part of the learning process.
The language of not quitting can become rather cliché. I love, however, the Dan Gable quote posted above. (I love a lot of Dan Gable quotes, of course). It speaks to the pain of challenging one’s self. No one considers quitting when he or she is winning or when things are going well. One quits only amidst the struggle—when the going gets tough or things are not going as one has planned. When one pushes beyond the comfort zone, the risk of failure grows exponentially. So, however, does the likelihood of long-term success.
I think what I most enjoyed about wrestling was the conditioning. We nicknamed our coach (Coach David Kling) “Mr. Sluggo” from the Mr. Bill sketches that we popular on Saturday Night Live at the time. He was great with conditioning (great as in he worked our tails off and then some). He was ahead of the times with his “Russian conditioning” and we ran—a lot. The “pain” of conditioning payed off. I was a much better wrestler for it. I always trusted that the longer the match went the greater my chances of winning, because I was always better conditioned than my opponent. I think I actually learned to enjoy the pain of conditioning. (I still don’t feel like I have really worked out unless I can wring the sweat out of my t-shirt.)
“Give everything you got today for tomorrow may never come.” In Latin, this can be translated as carpe diem (or, as I prefer, carpe momento). “We have no second chances at today” (or this moment) is essentially what Gable is saying here. If we sincerely want to be (extra)ordinary, we have to live today as if this is our only opportunity. Tomorrow may never come. Take advantage while it is here.
Be your best today; be better tomorrow.
Carpe momento!