I ran across this gem last year at some point on the SOCNET forums. Although it was posted and intended to be understood in a "military" application... its message obviously could also extend to any physical or psychological struggle in life. I've found it to be of immense value in those long races/events/workouts where everything inside you tells you to just give up and stop the pain... but then I remember its message and find myself strangely renewed and able to push onwards towards the goal.
fallen^sparrow
All you have to deal with is what your doing right at the moment.
When you're at the point of quitting it's because you're overwhelmed. You're lying on the ground trying to get just a couple hours sleep after a 16+ hours of moving through the toughest terrain you've ever seen, it's 50 degrees and it starts raining. All you have is a poncho and poncho liner and both are soaked and cold. You're uniform has been soaked in sweat for several days straight and clings to you and burns every raw spot. You can smell the ammonia odor as your body burns off muscle. And you know tommorrow is going to be even worse. Take it all together and it's easy to say "screw this." But the key is eliminate all the things past and banish thinking about all that's coming. Deal ONLY with what's happening right at the moment. Once the baggage of whats past is gone and the fear of whats coming as well, the immediate circumstance although uncomfortable, will become much easier to deal with. If there's something you can do to improve things do it.
Stop resisting the pain/discomfort. Our desire to be comfortable is our biggest enemy many times. Accept the fact that in the course of achieving your mission you will experience pain and discomfort. When it comes, don't resist it. For just one example, you twist your ankle but still have several klicks to go. Don't resist the pain when you take those steps. Resisting it mentally fatigues you very very quickly and weakens your will. Resisting it physically makes you tighten your muscles and adapt an off balance posture that only creates more pain in other parts of your body as well. If you can trust yourself to be strong enough to experience the pain without resisting it an amazing thing happens. The pain diminishes. I've never had this fail to work. You'll actually get a feeling of being very detached. And all you have to do then is take the next step. Not walk 5 more Klicks. Just walk one more step.
Find one thing to focus on to distract from the extraneous unimportant bull**** that's trying to overwhelm you. Absolutely best, start listing every time you found yourself in a tough situation and then came through. Remember exactly how it felt to stand and look back on accomplishing something you thought was going to overcome you, but you stuck it out and came through. And just take one more step.
Thanks for bringing this topic up. I needed to remember all this today.
__________________
Olsson
fallen^sparrow