Recently I’ve become obsessed with the reality show Alone. The premise is that 10 survivalists are dropped in the wilds of Alaska or Patagonia or Mongolia with only the clothes on their back, 10 tools, and camera gear to document their experiences. It’s wild to watch. They build primitive shelters and hunt with bows and arrows. There is a lot of ingenuity, but there is also a lot of suffering. A lot of shivering through cold nights, a lot of hunger, a lot of loneliness. And what’s so interesting for me is that every season, there is this refrain that you hear from the contestants. They’ll say, “I’m miserable. I’m lonely; I’m hungry; I’m tired; I’m cold. I wish I could just go home and eat good food in a warm room with my family. But I’m not a quitter. I’m not going to quit.”
How do we understand this ethos? I am miserable. I am cold and tired and hungry. What I am doing is actively making me unhappy. And yet, because I committed to this thing, because I said I would, because our culture frowns upon quitting, I’m going to stick it out. No matter what.