it is not the mountain I conquer, but myself. I am reaching for the top of the mountain and my day in the sun is here!

Hillary's line gets quoted at conferences, which has sanded off what he meant. The mountain didn't care either way. The thing he had to manage was himself at altitude, deciding whether to keep going.

Climbers have a name for the failure mode here: summit fever, pushing past the turnaround time because the top looks so close. Most deaths on big mountains happen on the way down. Conquering yourself sometimes means continuing. Sometimes it means turning back at two o'clock because you said you would.

Decide which one today asks for before you are tired enough to lie about it.