The Power of Quitting

What are you still doing because you refuse to quit?

I felt a red-hot rage behind my eyes so powerful that I had to unleash it. If it stayed there, it would drive me mad.

I needed to rip off my clothes, hit someone, or drive my head through the concrete wall like the goddamn Kool-Aid man.

I was in 4th grade playing a basketball game, and I’d just missed an easy layup. That was enough to send me to the Red Place, where the fire of anger was so hot that it made me murderous.

I hated basketball. I hated it so much that I wanted hurt myself and the people around me just so I could stop playing. I got ejected from games, I fought kids on other teams, I fought kids on my team, I cried, I walked off the court in the middle of plays —

I did everything except actually quit the team.

In my mind, quitting was a bad thing…always. Something quitters do. Part of that assumption was programming from society. Some my parents. And some my natural personality.

But all of it was destructive.

As I’ve gotten older, I’ve seen the negative impact of people refusing to quit.

Because of our identity as “a person who never gives up,” we stay in jobs we hate, relationships we don’t want, and creative projects that no longer serve us.

All for what? So we don’t have to look like a quitter?

Is it really worth wasting your life just so you don’t have to hear your passive-aggressive aunt ask you if you’re ever gonna get a real job?

Just so you don’t have to explain to your friends that you’re getting divorced at 45.

So you don’t have to imagine your old coworkers calling you a quitter behind your back because you stopped writing your book and moved to another creative endeavor?

Because that’s what we hide from when we refuse to give up: the remotest possibility that someone somewhere might think us a quitter.

A life without quitting is an increasingly-diluting life. You spread yourself thin on activities and people you don’t actually care about, all while neglecting the only things that matter.

You fantasize about escaping on vacations. Escaping through sex. Escaping by going off the grid and never coming back. All extreme forms of “quitting” without ever doing the real deed. You spend your whole life distracting yourself from the fact that you’re not living a life that’s yours at all.

You’re living a life just to reinforce an identity to yourself:

“I never give up,” you say as you kiss the husband you no longer love.

“I’m determined,” as you walk into the office, miserable.

“I’m not a quitter,” as the years pass you by in blinks.

“I stick to my word,” as you die with regret.

Quitting is a superpower.

It allows you to wash away the people, projects, and practices that no longer serve you. In that way, quitting allows you to focus intense energy on the things that do matter.

I started a podcast last summer and only did 12 episodes. Did I give up because I’m a quitter? That’s one way of looking at it. The way I see it, though, that podcast got me back into video and audio production, which led to me creating a lucrative video course.

I stopped doing comedy after I graduated college. Does that mean I’m not determined? Maybe. Or maybe I needed to hone my writing skills in my 20s so I could come back to comedy in my 30s as a better artist.

I finally quit basketball in high school so I could focus on baseball. Baseball turned into a passion which turned into a book that’s coming out next year.

The point is: fortitude and devotion have their place. But we are far more likely to stick with something because of how it reinforces our identity rather than sticking with it because of how it serves the world.