How do you know if success is just over the next hill?

Just when you’re about to give up, things tend to happen. Why is this so?

I have spent the past few months trying to port my wife’s US phone number to a service where we could hold onto it for when we return to the States. I also want to unlock her phone so we can use her phone here on a European carrier. It’s a bit of the chicken and the egg as you can’t do Step #4 before Step #3 and it’s a waiting game.

My patience was up.

I’d talked, chatted and replied in numerous forums with:

• AT&T
• Google Voice (volunteers, but very knowledgeable)
• Number Barn (where we’re now trying to port the number)
• Some shell company (?) who, apparently, tried to port her number back in 2014
• Anyone else who would listen

It’s been since June. It’s now September. I have notes, I have emails, I have forum threads. There was something about a port request in 2014 that was putting a hold on the process.

My wife really likes her US number. It’s easy to remember and she’s had it for 15 years. My number seemed to go smoothly back in June. Last night, she said that she was OK parting with her number because I didn’t have any more ideas about how to make it work and we’re paying AT&T $50 per month for, well, nothing really. Just to hold onto the number for us we have to have an account and that was the cheapest.

One last call to AT&T last night at midnight my time.

Stacy Plummer was the straw that broke the camel’s back. She said, “Oh, I see that there’s a port request that was never cancelled back in 2014. I’ll just cancel it and you’ll be on your way.”

Months of slogging through the techno jungle. Hours on the phone with representatives around the globe. Laughing with them, crying together, throwing up our hands and admitting that no one had any more ideas. Stacy solves it all.

Downhill skiing works best when you don’t try so hard.

When I was about to give up, in fact, in my mind, I was giving up, then it happened. I was at ease, I was at peace with the idea of my wife losing her cherished phone number. She was OK with it. It might cost some therapy down the road, but it was that or $50 per month for the rest of our lives. It was a toss up. I gave in. I lay down my arms and was ready to be taken by the telephone number porting demons and banished to a hard-to-remember number from here on out. I let go. I no longer tried. I no longer cared about the outcome.

I didn’t know success was just around the next bend. If I had known, I would have pushed harder, moved more quickly and doubled my effort. But I had done the hard work, I had gotten to the top of the hill, I just didn’t know because there was such a thick fog. It cleared and I had made it.

I no longer cared about the outcome and the outcome came to me.