The Best Quotes from The Pursuit of Endurance by Jennifer Pharr Davis

Several years ago I read Cheryl Strayed's Wild while visiting family in Western North Carolina. My sister, Beth, an avid backpacker and hiker, told me about a woman who hiked the entire Appalachian Trail in under 47 days. "Impossible." I remember saying to her. "It takes months to hike the AT." Beth persisted in telling me about Jennifer Pharr Davis, who had recently won a National Geographic Adventurer of the Year award for setting the Fastest Known Time (FKT) on the Appalachian Trail in 2011. Following my conversation with Beth, I read numerous hiking narratives because I wanted to understand how it was humanly possible to hike 2, 189 miles in less than two months.

In the dozen or so books I read about hiking, I learned about endurance, persistence, grit and transformation. My interest in these topics goes back to my childhood and a volleyball team my mom wouldn't let me quit (but that's a story for another time). In May as the final weeks of school wrapped up for the year, I read two new books The Pursuit of Endurance: Harnessing the Record-Breaking Power of Strength and Resilience by Jennifer Pharr Davis and North: Finding My Way While Running the Appalachian Trail by Scott Jurek. Both were exceptionally written and awe inspiring, but I related more with aspects of Pharr Davis's book because of my connections to Western North Carolina. Not only does my family live there, but I lived there, taught there, hiked there, birthed my children there.

This week, I returned to The Pursuit of Endurance because the well-researched approach and embedded narrative resonated with me. I marked passages and selected quotes for motivation and inspiration. Here I'm sharing some of my favorites because I bet they'll resonate with you, too, especially if you need a little Monday Motivation (or any other day of the week motivation). Hopefully, you'll take away not only a quote for motivation, but a desire to read the full book.

Photo Credit: Ethan Boss 

Quotes for when it feels like you're failing and life all around you is crumbling

"When it feels as if you are constantly losing and everything good is slipping away, it is difficult to muster the strength to keep trying again and again. But endurance is the ability to continue despite past results and with disregard for future outcomes (107)."

"When you have failed over and over again, the decision to keep moving forward is not derived from reason but driven by hope (108)."

"If you never fail then you haven't set your goals high enough (139)." 

"Don't be afraid of failure. Endurance is failure after failure, after failure (295)."

Quotes for learning more about yourself

"The thing about a long, grueling journey is that it strips away who you're not and allows you to discover what's left--or who's left (165)."

"One damn good reason to pursue endurance--and choose suffering--is to get to know yourself inside and out. When you reach that moment where you gave more than you thought you had and accomplished more than you thought you could, it's clear who you are (165)."

"The best way to move forward is not to forsake the past, but to forgive it--and yourself (174)."

Quotes for when you're judging yourself or others

"Go outside, take a walk with someone different from you (295)."

"My rule of thumb is that you never judge someone else's pace or form because you don't know how far they've come and what they're still planning to do (299)."

"The essence of endurance will never be defined by rules and categories; it will be distinguished by the stories of the unique individuals who blaze the trail 293)." 

"The hurt we experience in life might never fully go away; it could ebb and flow for an eternity. You can make progress and appreciate the times when life isn't much of a struggle. And you can pray, and cry, and wrestle through the rest (293)." 

"It behooves us to not come to quick conclusions about other people's paths and instead approach each individual with encouragement and compassion. We might be on different trails, but we are all mid-journey (300)." 

Quotes for when you feel like you can't keep going

"When life feels hopeless, or unfair or completely out of my control, I remember the new opportunities and experiences and encounters that arise when you are willing to take one more step (201)."

"We exist only as long as we persist. And there is confounding hope and limitless possibility in our ability to rise up, change direction, and take one more step (302)."

"It is okay to fall short, it is okay to let people down, it is okay to hurt and suffer, it is okay to stop when you can't go any farther. But don't give up on yourself, your goals, or the people around you (296)."

Quotes for remembering that you have a choice

"Endurance isn't accepting the trail you're on, it's choosing it (245)."

"Our resilience is proved in trying circumstances and exhibited by accepting a challenge. Choosing to tackle difficult situations will help us better navigate the ones that are forced on us (293)."

"Feeling stuck is no excuse for staying where you are. Life is hard; struggle is guaranteed, but you can exercise your right to choose where and how to struggle (299)."

Photo Credit: Ethan Boss

Quotes for remembering that YOU MATTER

"You can't let public opinion determine the worth of your journey (281)." 

"Endurance, even amid a competition, is still an individual journey. Everyone takes part in a unique struggle and at some point, you will need to unlock your own secrets in order to keep going (198)."

"You can't let public opinion determine the worth of your journey (281)."  

"I remind myself that sometimes you are so consumed by the task at hand that you don't realize that you are on your way to accomplishing something amazing (201)."

"The AT emits wisdom.
There is a palpable maturity
that wafts
 through the ancient
 granite and the exposed,
gnarled roots of the spruce trees (132)."

Read my review of Becoming Odyssa for Sip & Slice Blog.

My Journey into a Career in Education

I didn't set out to be a teacher.

As a high school junior, new to yet another school (my tenth in 13 years), a high school counselor told me I would never make it to college. Maybe he said this because my parents did not graduate from college. Maybe he said this because my family worked hard but received assistance. Maybe it was because I had moved so many times and barely had the right credits to graduate in a new state. Most likely he said this because I took the most basic courses, not college preparatory courses. 

Determined, driven, and intent on being the first college graduate in our family, I set out for college and majored in political science/international relations because of a long time interest in worldwide Human Rights. I didn't stay at the first college I attended. No. I continued the familiar pattern of moving. It was only when I finally landed at Piedmont that I began to settle and make peace with my former transient life style. At Piedmont I selected psychology as my major with hopes of working with disadvantaged youth. During an internship where I taught relationship courses at a learning center for teens, I discovered my true interest in not just working with teens but in teaching. After graduation, I got married and began a two year Masters program which also led to a Georgia teaching certificate.


Foxfire & Rabun County High School, Rabun County, GA.
My experiences in the classroom began during my year-long internship at the rural Rabun County High School in Tiger, Georgia. Two full semesters of teaching and observations under Foxfire facilitator, Angela Cheek, provided me a solid foundation for establishing my own classroom in 1998.  If you don’t know much about the Foxfire approach to teaching and learning, you should check it out. The heart of Foxfire’s success is student choice.  The approach to teaching and learning is experiential based and student-centered. 

Following my student teaching experience in Georgia and the completion of my Master’s degree, my husband and I moved to Sylva, North Carolina so he could work on a Master’s degree. I certainly was not prepared for the shift to a small community of public schools interested only in hiring local folks. I spent that first semester in the fall of 1998 teaching English and science at a small private school and teaching adjunct English courses at a local community college.

Cherokee Indian Reservation, Cherokee, NC.
An outsider like me was welcome though at Cherokee High School on the Indian Reservation of the Eastern Band of Cherokee. When they offered me a position teaching high school English in January of 1999 I jumped at the chance and launched head first into an amazing experience for my first five years of teaching. Grounded in the idea that students should have choice in learning, I ran my classroom as a facilitator of learning and became a master at differentiation. 99% of my students were Cherokee, and they all had different learning needs. Again, I equate any success experienced at Cherokee to student choice in learning. They appreciated it, and I fine-tuned how to provide student choice and meet the state required objectives and curriculum through Project-Based Learning experiences.

The highlight of our project-based learning experiences together was no doubt the Renaissance Festival the students selected to create as a way to learn the required British literature curriculum.  Student centered and community involved, we even had the Asheville television station run a segment on our event as part of their Never Stop Learning series in October of 2002. Leaving Cherokee after five years of teaching was tough for me because I felt successful as a teacher and had even earned an award for 2002-2003 Cherokee High School Teacher of the Year.

Fayette County Public Schools,   Lexington, KY.

Alas, we had to move again because it was time for my husband to pursue a PhD at the University of Kentucky. So, two weeks after giving birth to my second child, we moved to Kentucky where I obtained a teaching position at the county’s most inner city school. 

This brought new challenges in part because I thought I had figured out how to teach and was comfortable in the profession. Maybe a shake up was exactly what I needed to become an even stronger teacher. In Lexington, the school where I taught had a very diverse student population. The experience of dealing with diversity brought new challenges and caused me to question what I thought I knew about being a teacher. But I was determined to meet my students' needs. New state. New school. New colleagues. New parents. New community. New students. New standards which were skill based. New content area, too, because in addition to teaching English, I taught arts and humanities. It was at this new school when I decided to pursue National Board certification. Earning my NBCT status was a highlight in my career because the process brought professional learning. Analyzing student work, writing and reflecting on my teaching practices, and producing evidence of my practice and my students' work were fantastic ways to help me improve as a teacher which ultimately led to me being recognized in the district teacher spotlight segment in 2008-2009.

The NBCT process also taught me more about being a leader because it required me to show evidence of how I was a teacher leader, not something I had given much thought previously. When you take the time to think intentionally about what you are doing, it improves your outcome. The year after earning NBCT status, I became department chair for our 13 member English department of young teachers. My leadership experience and demonstration of effective teaching were important and relevant factors for my position, which still required me to teach a full 6 courses. I taught everything from arts and humanities to AP Language, AP Literature to elective courses such as Shakespeare and Women's Studies to general 10th grade English. There was no release time for building capacity of other teachers. We really caught our groove though and created a cross disciplinary literacy team and started on a literacy plan based on meeting the needs of students in our school. Two years after achieving NBCT status, I decided I needed a change of pace.  Leaving the classroom was not an easy decision as you might have noticed if you've been following my blog. If you haven't been following, you can read more about that decision here, here, and here. 

State Department of Education In the winter of 2009, I accepted a position as literacy consultant at our state's education agency. Three months into this new position, a key piece of legislation (commonly known as Senate Bill 1) was passed into law. This sent our entire state into an era of new reform. I went to this position very naive about politics in education. I paid close attention and spent time learning, reading, researching, and listening.  Needless to say, it was a very interesting experience. 

It's About Kids Support Services (District Office). After weeks of soul searching and even conversations about returning to the classroom full time, I accepted a position in late August 2012 in my home district in Lexington, Kentucky. Returning to Fayette County Public Schools was a rewarding learning experience. I served as Secondary English Language Arts Specialist for the district and spent my time working with teachers. I visited classrooms, facilitated professional development sessions, provided Literacy Design Collaborative Training to English, Social Studies, and Science teachers in collaboration with teachers in those disciplines, planned for Response to Intervention work in the district, planned for literacy teams and writing program reviews, started a new blog, and contributed to the district Innovation Team. 

A Nonprofit Organization.  In the spring of 2013 I was recruited for a new position with a brand new organization designed to promote change and innovation in Kentucky's schools.  After more soul searching and a realization that I should walk the talk about taking leaps, I accepted a position leading an initiative for a curriculum project and research study with schools in Kentucky and Colorado collaborating to create units of study to meet the needs of their students and the demands of the Common Core State Standards.  Because we are a brand new organization with only a few employees, I also contribute the blog and initially helped run some of the social media accounts.  (I love this!)  I remain steadfastly committed to raising the voice of teachers and students in public education in my new position.  We need changes in our system, and my new position is offering me additional opportunities to promote changes and to encourage teachers along the way.
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NOTE: This post used to appear on my About page, but when I decided to update that page today, I wanted to preserve my longer bio, so I updated this a bit and added information about my decision to get into education in the first place.

~~~Please tell me about your journey in the comments area below~~~

Learning through Travel in 2013

I love to travel and think it's very educational because you learn when you pay attention to your surroundings and are curious on each adventure.  I've written previously about how my husband and I try to enhance the fine public school education our children are receiving.   As we near the end of 2013, I've decided to share five little trips our family took this year.  In no way do these trips represent world-wide travel or extensive excursions to exotic places (out of our current budget range).  Instead, I am sharing these small family trips because trips like these are more doable for an average family, and it's a great way to think about how weekend trips to visit family in another state or activities in a local city can also be a learning experience too.  


 Bob Dylan Concert & a Lego Store

For years I've wanted to see Bob Dylan live in concert, and I know my chances are growing slimmer with each passing year, so when we learned Dylan would be in nearby Cincinnati, Ohio, we decided to check on ticket prices.  Fortunately, there was a special for four tickets at a very reasonable rate.  We thought about finding a babysitter for our boys, but then decided we should take them to the concert because seeing Bob Dylan in concert could be a historical moment in their young (10 & 12 years old) lives.  At first they were not thrilled with the idea, but when we told them we would stay overnight in a hotel and go to the Lego store the next day, they were up for the experience.  There was a moment at the concert when my husband took the boys aside and whispered to them to look on the stage and take mental note of Bob Dylan in his white jacket because that would be a moment for them to remember forever.  Afterwards they both said it was pretty cool to see someone with such history, but then they were ready for the visit to the Lego store the next day.

A Civil War Train Ride and Battle Reenactment

Kentucky has its share of Civil War history, so this year we decided to take the boys on a Civil War train ride in Versailles, Kentucky, a short twenty minute drive from where we live.  The experience was fascinating and informative.  Actors and actresses from children to middle-aged adults rode in the train cars with us and carried on in ways that would have been typical of their class status in the 19th century.  We were victims of a Civil War train robbery and it was all in the name of educational fun.

Museums and Monuments Galore in Washington, D.C.

In the early part of the year, I did some freelance writing and consulting to earn money for a desired family trip toWashington, D.C. during spring break.  I had long wanted the family to make this trip because after all the business trips I took to D.C., I knew my family would enjoy seeing the sites and experiencing the history of the city. We found amazing deals on airfare, so the boys took their second ever airplane ride (though they are too young to remember the first one).  We rode the Metro, we walked until our feet were numb, and we rode in a taxi back to the airport.  I highlight modes of transportation because they were one of the highlights for my curious boys who have always enjoyed playing with planes, trains, and automobiles.  Other highlights of the trip were some of the tourist staples--the Smithsonian Museums, the Capitol, Abraham Lincoln's Monument, and Arlington National Cemetery for the changing of the guard.  Coincidentally, the day we watched the changing of the guard was the same day the high school from my husband's home town (Perry, GA) was there laying a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknowns.  

Tybee Island Lighthouse 


Since all of our family live elsewhere, the holidays generally mean a trip of some sort for us.  This year, my husband's dad and step mom (who live in south Georgia) decided to rent a condo on Tybee Island for our Thanksgiving weekend visit. We toured the Tybee Island Lighthouse (and yes--climbed all 178 steps) and we took a historical tour of Savannah too.  My oldest son has been interested in the invention of the light bulb since he was a toddler, so seeing the giant light bulbs they used at one point in the lighthouse's history was especially interesting to him.  The wind was strong the day we visited, so we all stayed close to the building when we walked out on the lookout platform.


The trip would not have been complete without our roadside stop to see and touch the cotton remnants in a field.  My youngest was learning about the plantations in the south and the history of slavery in school, so the cotton field brought very vivid ideas to his mind based on the atrocities he studied in his social studies class.

White Squirrels in the Fall and Christmas in Brevard, North Carolina

My parents and all of my sisters and their families live in North Carolina, and generally we visit in the summer for hiking, picnicking, and seeing waterfalls.  This past summer, however, I started a new job and had numerous work related trips and the boys had various summer camps, so we skipped our summer trip to Brevard.  Instead, we traveled to Brevard during fall break and again during Christmas break.  Being in Brevard in the fall is gorgeous because of the mountain views and fall tree colors.  We even saw a legendary white squirrel on our fall visit.

Our visit at Christmas was momentous because we hadn't seen one of my sisters and her family in over a year since they live in the middle part of the state.  For Christmas though, we were all there with my parents carrying on with family traditions and making memories with cousins playing together in the woods near my parents' house.  

Hiking Exclamation Point at Chimney Rock

While on vacation visiting extended family in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina, we hiked a few trails, including three trails at Chimney Rock.

  We started with The Outcroppings moderate to strenuous trail that involved taking a network of stairs and boardwalks (approximately 615 steps).  We looked out over Lake Lure and enjoyed the stunning scenery; we were not at “the rock” (elevation 2280) long before my eleven year old son started asking about the next trail to Exclamation Point.  My younger son and husband decided they did not wish to continue hiking up; they were saving their energy for the Hickory Nut Falls Trail to see the waterfall. Thinking it couldn’t require much energy to hike another couple hundred feet up, I quickly told the eleven year old that I would make the hike with him while the other two family members rested at the Sky Lounge.

Ascending stairways we were surprised by the switchbacks but observed interesting geological formations and noticed we encountered fewer people (good thing since the path was narrow now) than we had on our previous climb with the family.  Up, up, up we climbed with my eleven year old in the lead turning and stopping often to offer words of encouragement that we were “almost there.”  That’s the tricky thing about this switchback climb—we thought we were almost there the whole time. I began to ponder the name Exclamation Point and the fact that I should have known the hike would be steep, with such a name.