If you were running a 5k race, what would it mean to you if someone said the end is around the corner, keep running the race, don’t give up!
You would literally believe it was around the next corner, wouldn’t you? When it wasn’t, you’d start questioning if you heard them correctly. Then you see the next corner approaching, but like the last one, no finish line.
You know your regular running pace and have a feeling a certain amount of time has passed, so you feel the end has to be so close. Corner after corner brings no finish line, yet everyone on the sidelines is cheering you on saying it’s just around the corner.
Deep down you feel like you have run the equivalent of a 10k race by now and are exhausted. You start realizing people aren’t saying it’s around “this corner”, they are vaguely saying “around the corner”.
You are not a quitter, but you have not trained for anything longer than a 5k race before. You go as long as your body and mind allows you to before collapsing and saying you are done with the race. Everyone calls you a loser for quitting, yet you found out you actually ran 20k.
This is how so many of the older JWs feel. They have been pushed and pushed for decades and some begin to realize the finish line is them collapsing and dying on the road, not actually crossing over a finish line.