Quit to get ahead

In America one value people seem to have is never giving up! I think this was really prevalent as a child. If you wanted to learn to ride a bike it didn't matter that you fell, you needed to get back up and try again. If a child joined a sports league and they didn't enjoy playing the sport they should at least finish the season. Sometimes though the person teaching you to ride a bike is terrible, or your coach is always benching you, so what's the point of going to the games?

When I first learned to ride a bike I was in Colombia, and I took a fall, cried, and didn't want to try again. Taking a fall seemed like a breach of trust. If my dad was holding on to me why was he so careless as to let me fall, or why wasn't the expectation set about falling? Thankfully, my parents respected my boundaries, and didn't push me to bike. A year later by the time I made it to the US I had learned to bike.

Of course there's tremendous value to perseverance, and to experiencing success after trying so hard. Everyone loves a story about how someone was told they wouldn't succeed and then they proved everyone wrong. Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team, and went on to be one of the best basketball players ever. It definitely paid off for Michael Jordan to persevere, and who knows who the next Michael Jordan is, so people should never give up, right? No!

There's value to giving up. Maybe you've heard of the sunk cost fallacy, it's the idea that the cost is already going to be incurred, and it's not going to be recovered. It's often hard to grasp this idea. A loose example of this for me is just because I studied Economics doesn't mean I have to pursue a career in Economics, even if this means I have to incur additional costs in terms of time, and money to obtain a different skill. This isn't a great example, because it's not that I didn't enjoy Economics it's more so that I thought there were better opportunities elsewhere.

A fitting economic concept is opportunity cost, which is the idea that when you make a choice your opportunity cost is the value of the alternative that you didn't give up. A hypothetical example is the opportunity cost of Michael Jordan playing basketball is that he didn't play soccer. Although the NBA is a huge market, soccer seems to have more international traction, and who knows maybe Michael Jordan's athletic abilities could have transferred over to soccer, and he could've earned more money. That confusing example aside the point is whenever you make a decision it means the time that you dedicated to one activity can't be used for any other activity.

These examples aren't perfect because we likely can accomplish more than we think we can. However, the average person might work a 40 hour a week job, so whatever job you pick means you won't work another job. Similarly whatever career you pick means you won't work in another career until you incur the costs to change careers. This applies to many things whatever friends you choose means you are spending time with them, and not other people.

What I am kind of trying to say is that you should consider Marie Kondoing your life, and by that I mean if it doesn't spark joy throw it out. Notice that I say you should consider this. I am not putting forward a grand theory that everything that doesn't spark joy needs to be thrown out. For instance, a lot of people don't enjoy their jobs, but their jobs provide financial security and health care, and that is definitely valuable. Some people might not enjoy going to the gym, but staying active and healthy is so important. A related challenge is one of delayed gratification. If you've prolonged going to the gym for many years and you suddenly start going it might be extra miserable. However, after even a few weeks of determination I hope people would start to see improvements in their quality of life.

My experience is that as a society quitting is way too stigmatized, and we would benefit from it being stigmatized a little less. In my opinion a low stakes example is the idea of eating / finishing all your food. I still experience deep discomfort when I see food wasted. However, I recently rationalized not forcing myself to over eat by saying that ultimately over eating will take time off my life, and since I only have one life to live it's way more valuable to not overeat than to have a badge of honor for being part of the clean plate club.

I think a difficult part of feeling more comfortable with quitting is that there is also an economic cost associated with it. With food waste presumably you bought the food so it also hurts more to throw it away. If you are eating animal products it's also sad to consider that an animal died, and we aren't even eating all that was served to us. Even if you didn't buy the food if you eat now, you could save yourself from having to buy food later. These costs are more obvious for something like breaking a lease agreement. Where you live might make you feel miserable, and might be terrible for your quality of life, but you might have to pay the rest of your rent or a penalty if you move out, so it's a much harder decision. Basically I'm acknowledging that there are stakes, and costs to quitting, and depending on people's circumstances quitting can be harder.

If you want to get nihilistic and extreme you can talk about quitting on life. This seems like a moral dilemma outside the scope of what I am writing. Generally, we value life and under many circumstances particularly around depression we view suicide as a problem, and not a solution. As a human who values life I agree with this viewpoint. Nonetheless, I think it's hard to pinpoint what is okay and what's not okay. If someone has a terminal illness, or are experiencing a condition that really impacts their quality of life then assisted suicide can make sense and it's legal in some countries. Also notably we seem more comfortable with the idea of putting down our pets, than putting down fellow humans if the humans have expressed their desire to no longer live.

Anyway I'm going to leave this topic in an undeveloped state, because I don't have a good enough understanding about the treatment of depression, and the cases of when it's a lifelong problem. It's easier for us to understand and see the degenerative impacts of something like cancer. I think it'd be incredibly interesting if we could experience the pain other people were in / their thoughts. As an example for all you know food tastes 2 times better for everyone else than for you. Intuitively this statement doesn't feel right, but I suspect that if we could truly experience other people's lives we would have a good understanding of different outcomes. Imagine being thrust into a 2 year olds body as a parent, and seeing first hand what it's like not to have impulse control and want to run around all the time. After seeing this so viscerally you might have way more patience for your child.

I'd really love to delve into this idea of experiencing other people's lives first hand from a science fiction perspective more, but for now I want to provide some helpful context of how we can be more open to quitting things, and what things are okay to quit. Here's a list of a few things you could quit

• Stop reading a book if it's bad
• Walk out of a movie
• Leave a party earlier if you aren't enjoying it
• Stop attending periodic meetings if you don't enjoy them

Things that are harder to quit but could be worth considering

• More dicey but leave your job if you aren't enjoying it
• Walk out of a date sooner rather than later if it's going poorly
  • Or figure out a way to normalize this behavior

It's interesting because we don't apply the idea of quitting to everything. If you go bowling for fun once, and you don't go back you probably didn't quit, or did you? Maybe if we called more things quitting in what seems like an inappropriate use of the word we would be more comfortable with quitting in higher stakes situations. The reality is that time is limited, and we can't do everything so it is helpful to be mindful of what we could be quitting to free us up more. Quitting things that take up our time, is arguably more important than decluttering your home. How's that for a life philosophy Marie Kondo?

Ultimately there is no magic formula for when you should continue doing something vs when you should stop. Natural stopping points make sense for things like rec leagues, or things that run for a season. There are other situations like relationships and obligations that are less obvious. A good thing is you often can come back. When you quit don't make a scene or maybe make a scene, but don't burn bridges. I'm not saying that you should quit everything, but we should reevaluate the idea of never giving up and reduce the stigma around quitting.

In fairness to quitting there are areas where quitting is celebrated such as:

• Quitting smoking
• Quitting your job - people do love sticking it to the man

To that we say that's great quitting can do with some better public relations. Please quit something in 2025, and do it in style! If you must quit this blog! My subscriber count is low enough that I can probably deduce who you are, and I will be temporarily mad. I will also be confused, because presumably you read till the end, but aren't happy? I will also appreciate your commitment to the bit!