Guy Reams (00:00.366)
Day 130, miles to go before I sleep. There's a particular kind of exhaustion that sets in after a great effort. The kind that doesn't just leave you physically tired, but drains something deeper. It comes when the finish line has been crossed, the task completed, the milestone reached. You breathe for a moment, perhaps even smile in satisfaction, but then the heaviness follows. The mountain is not gone. Another ridge rises ahead and the path continues.
At times like these, I turn to poetry. Certain poets have a way of speaking to the spirit, reminding us of things we already know but struggle to hold onto when we're in as clouds our vision. Robert Frost is one of those poets for me. His poem, Stopping by the Woods on a Snowy Evening, captures something essential about perseverance, not in a grand, forceful way, but in a quiet, persistent one. Stopping by woods on a snowy evening. Whose woods these are, I think I know.
His house is in the village, though. He will not see me stopping here to watch his woods fill up with snow. My little horse must think it queer to stop without a farmhouse near, between the woods and frozen lake, the darkest evening of the year. He gives his hardness bells a shake to ask if there is some mistake. The only other sounds the sweep of easy wind and downy flake. The woods are lovely, dark and deep, but I have promises to keep.
and miles to go before I sleep. And miles to go before I sleep. There's something about the quiet solitude of this poem that resonates deeply. The speaker pauses in the stillness of the woods, momentarily captivated by their beauty. The snow falls, the world hushes, and for a brief moment, everything else fades away. How easy it would be to linger, to rest, to retreat, to forget the journey for a while. But the horse shakes its harness bells. There is work yet to be done.
There are promises to keep and so the traveler moves forward, knowing there are still miles to go before I sleep. We all reach these moments where we want to stop, not just for rest, but for escape. After pouring ourselves into something, perhaps a difficult project, an ambitious goal, or an uphill battle, we fought hard to win. It's natural to feel spent. The temptation to linger in a quiet, comfortable place can be overwhelming. But life is not made up of single efforts. Growth is not achieved in bursts.
Guy Reams (02:25.719)
The work of persistence is slow and ongoing, often stretching between what we thought we had the strength to endure. The key is to acknowledge the exhaustion without surrendering to it. Take the pause, breathe in the stillness, admire the beauty of the moment, but then move forward again. Sometimes the most difficult part of the journey is that the mountain doesn't seem to get any smaller. The further we climb, the more there is to go. In those moments, it's easy to wonder if the effort is ever worth it, if the journey will ever feel complete.
Frost's reminds us that the measure of our journey is not just in where we rest, but in the promises we keep to ourselves, to others, to the work we were meant to do. The weight of responsibility is not always a burden. Sometimes it is the very thing that keeps us moving forward when we might otherwise stop. When discouragement sets in, when the mountain looms, and when the body and mind plead for an easy way out, remember Frost's traveler. Allow yourself to pause. Feel the exhaustion, but do not let it define you.
The road stretches ahead, long and uncertain. There is no promise of ease, only the certainty of distance. But there is also a purpose. There are promises to keep. And there are many miles to go before I sleep.