That is an excellent line in the title, and unfortunately it is not mine. It is an old American saying. That does not stop me drilling into you about its practical meaning.
People are stuck. You are stuck, I am stuck. We are all stuck somewhere. That is not news. But the stuckness in our lives did not arise from nothing. We got to it somehow, which is dispiriting — and at this very moment we are bound inside a daily routine that intensifies the stuckness, which is more than dispiriting. It is dangerous.
That is the state my American friends call a hole.
The hole is an umbrella term for all the things you are doing right now that are doing you harm.
And the emphasis is on doing. I am not interested in your thoughts.
In many cases you do not even notice it, and if you do notice it, you do not give it its proper weight, or you excuse the wretched routine to yourself with a thousand unnecessary rationalisations.
So that you do not fall asleep from an excess of theory, here are some examples.
You waste hours at night watching rubbish instead of accumulating sleep? That is a hole.
You are spending money you do not have on food deliveries? A hole.
You have not slept together for six months and you are not discussing it directly? A serious hole.
You are still attending that course even though it bores you and you are bad at it? A hole.
Every trivial conversation between you ends in an explosion? Also a hole.
You spend far too many hours scrolling? You guessed: a black hole.
And here is the twist. I am certain I am telling you nothing new. You know it is bad. You simply carry on doing it.
That is an astonishing human phenomenon. It is astonishing precisely because it is so banal, so undramatic — and so common.
And the reason the saying is useful, rather than merely clever, is that it separates two things people habitually merge. Getting out of the hole is difficult, requires a plan, and may not be available to you this month. Stopping digging is available immediately and requires nothing.
Almost everybody stuck in a hole is waiting until they have the resources for the first before attempting anything — and spends the entire waiting period performing the second.
You do not have to climb out today. You have to put the spade down.