If you find yourself in a hole, stop digging.

I hereby solemnly declare that I now have stopped my digging.
I have dug in the same clay hole for opals for at least forty years, but I have never had much success with it. OK, I have found a few opals, but only small ones and not very good ones. So, now it is over. I have now given up that trade. I have finally realized that I will never find, down in that hole, the opal that can change my life.
I will now take a bath to clean off the mud and put some clean clothes on and go in to town, as a new man.