There is No Excuse for not Trying

Jared Collins stood at the bottom of the same hill he had failed to climb for the past three mornings. It wasn’t Everest or anything close to it — just a steep dirt trail cutting up the side of a small mountain on the edge of his town. To others, it was a scenic hike. To Jared, it was a daily battlefield.

At 37, Jared wasn’t where he thought he’d be. His athletic dreams had faded into office routines, his guitar collected dust under the bed, and even his friendships had dulled with time. Every day, he woke up with a gnawing sense that life was moving past him — that somewhere along the way, he had simply stopped trying.

It had all come to a head six months earlier, after a late-night argument with his younger brother, Evan. Evan, a fitness coach and motivational speaker, had said the words Jared couldn’t unhear:

“You keep saying you could do things. But when was the last time you actually tried?”

Jared hadn’t answered. Instead, he sat in silence while Evan walked out, leaving those words hanging like a weight in the room.

That night, Jared lay awake thinking about all the things he’d once wanted to do — and all the excuses he’d made not to. He was too old. Too tired. Too busy. Too late.

The next morning, he put on sneakers and walked to the hill.

He hadn’t made it far that day. Breathless and dizzy halfway up, he turned back, telling himself it was just a bad day. The second morning, he gave up sooner. By the third, his calves ached before he even reached the trailhead. He thought about quitting altogether.

But something in him had shifted. Maybe it was pride. Maybe it was anger. Or maybe it was that he was tired of feeling like a spectator in his own life.

On the fourth day, Jared reached halfway. It wasn’t easy. Every step burned, and his lungs screamed. But as he stood there, sweat dripping into his eyes, he looked out at the view and felt something he hadn’t felt in years — alive.

The next few weeks became a routine. He wasn’t fast. He wasn’t graceful. But he kept going. Every morning. No excuses.

Then came the day he reached the summit.

Jared stood at the top as the sun broke through the clouds, casting golden light over the valley below. He felt tall, even though the climb had taken him twice as long as most people. He wasn’t competing with anyone else. This victory was his own.

And it wasn’t just the hill. With each step he conquered, something inside him changed.

He pulled out his old guitar and played for the first time in years, relearning songs he once knew by heart. He signed up for an open mic night — not because he thought he’d win anything, but because he wanted to try.

He reconnected with old friends, reached out to Evan, and even volunteered to coach kids' soccer on weekends. He didn’t do it all perfectly. Some days were rough. Some weeks, he skipped the hill. But he never let excuses become his story again.

One Saturday morning, as Jared stood atop the hill watching the sunrise, a teenage boy approached him, panting, and dropped beside him on the rock.

“Man,” the kid said, “how do you do this every day?”

Jared laughed, wiping sweat from his brow. “One step at a time. No magic to it.”

The kid nodded, catching his breath. “I keep telling myself I’ll start working out tomorrow, but something always comes up.”

Jared looked at him and smiled — not with judgment, but with understanding.

“I used to say that too,” he replied. “But here’s the truth: There’s no excuse good enough to stop you from trying. Even if you fail, trying matters. It changes you.”

The kid looked at him for a long moment. “Yeah,” he said softly, “I guess I needed to hear that.”

Jared offered his hand. “Come back tomorrow. Let’s climb it again.”

As they descended the hill together, Jared felt something deeper settle in him — not just pride, but purpose.

Because trying wasn’t about becoming someone famous or winning a trophy. It was about refusing to let fear, failure, or laziness write the ending. It was about showing up — for yourself, and for others.

And in that simple act, every single day, Jared was no longer the man who quit.

He was the man who climbed.