When to walk away...and when to run?

I always tell my runners that all the lessons they learn in training and racing, they can apply to real life, too. So when we were faced with this difficult house-buying problem, I tried to rely on my running instincts to figure out what was best.

We saw a house we wanted to buy. We sold our condo to be able to buy it. But then lots of things kept going wrong. The seller was being picky about the move-in date, so we had to move that around a few times. Our buyers were also being picky as they had to move out of a rental and so we had to somehow accommodate that, plus the delay of part of their financing which was coming from overseas. They got antsy over little things, and threatened to back out twice. The night before the scheduled move, Miriam was up all night, sick. Then the next day, after I had moved a bunch of our stuff to Kris', where we were going to stay for a couple days to bridge the gap between when we moved out and when we were moving in, we get a call saying that the bank had refused financing to our buyers. Our buyers refused to even try another bank, and that threw our house purchase under the bus. Then we had to consider whether or not we wanted a mortgage, and whether or not we could even get one. Maybe if we were lucky, the seller would just give us more time.

So we tried to decide what to do. It seemed like the universe was pushing us away from this move. Or was it telling us to push forward, and that it would be worth it, but we'd have to work for it? This is where the running lesson comes in.

There is a point in every race where you have to decide if you are a hero or a wimp. It's harsh, but true. And every runner knows that feeling. It is your brain telling the rest of your body that something is wrong, and you should probably stop. You don't stop, usually, and it ends up being ok, usually. So we know we can override this deep-brain warning in order to achieve our goals. We practice pushing ourselves to that line in training, and gain the confidence we need to do it in performance.

There are certain situations where stopping is a better option: if you are injured. Sometimes we stop because the payoff is not enough: we know we won't win the race, or run a PB or get the placing we need to qualify. These aren't good excuses for a runner, but they make sense psychologically. Basically, we need to be motivated by the right things.

So to take it back to the house, are all of these roadblocks worth the payoff? Or is this a case of an injury that we really should take care of before jumping back in a race?