The thing about quitting

I’d just finished my first year of my medical degree (I have lived many lives) but halfway through that same year I had applied and gotten accepted into the commerce faculty. I quit medicine for a future in corporate. My family’s dreams of having a doctor in our lineage were immediately ceased. As was the case with most of my December holidays as a teen, I spent the days at home either reading, watching movies or catching up with friends on MixIt (remember, remember?). One of the ongoing chats I was having was with a girl who was my junior in high school. She had just completed grade 12 and had been accepted to the same medical school I was exiting. Excited and anxious about her first year, we spoke at length about it, her asking me questions and me giving my expert advice with my almost one-year experience living the life she was about to embark on. One day she had an argument with her parents. That was the last conversation we had. The next day I got a call from a mutual friend that this girl, at 17 with a bright future ahead of her, had taken her own life. Even after all these years, every time I think about that young lady I can’t help but wonder how life would have turned out for them had they just held on. Fought the thought. Won the battle. Back then mental health was a non-existent concept so I couldn’t wrap my head around giving up your whole life, when everything (struggles included) but death is temporary. I’m a little better educated on it now but I’m no expert so this is by no means a write up about fighting the urge to take your own life. But for all it’s worth, if it ever comes to that, I beg you to fight it. It is always darkest before dawn. Things will get better. Don’t quit just yet. Not on your dreams, not on your career, not on love and most certainly not on your life.

How many times have you considered quitting a difficult situation only to find that years or even a few days later you found yourself thinking “hey, I survived that, I didn’t think I would but I did and now I’m here and I did it and I’m glad I didn’t give up”? At a dinner with friends recently, we spoke about the fine line between “knowing when to quit” and having a winner’s mentality, cause “winners never quit and quitters never win”. Which one is it though? If winners never quit, then are those who know when to quit by default considered losers?

The pattern I’ve noticed in my own life is that I usually want to quit at the beginning, which is silly cause how do you switch the car off before you even start the journey? When something is new and challenging, I always feel like I don’t want to do it because I hate feeling like I suck. In her book “Everything is Figureoutable” (if you know me, you’ll know that it’s only a matter of time before I reference a book) Marie Forleo says “don’t” means “won’t”, so you’re essentially not willing to make the effort. The thought of not making an effort is even more daunting to me than sucking so I end up pressing on, constantly fighting the urge to quit. Next thing, I’m getting better or the situation improves and that quitting feeling is drained of its battery life. Instead of feeling like a winner, the whole experience leaves me questioning whether I push myself too far and lack that wisdom of knowing when to quit. What I know is that that persistence is a true test of patience. I imagine quitting to be a cousin of patience. Life can get so frustrating when things don’t go according to plan. Nobody likes waiting. Waiting for something extraordinary to happen. For the dream job to present itself at your doorstep, for the day you find the love of your life, or get married, or have your first child, or till you graduate, or get promoted. What quitting does is that it cuts this waiting period short but without the results. The one thing quitting gives you is certainty - you quit the race half way - you definitely don’t cross the finish line. The question is, do you want to cross the finish line or not? The thing with quitting is that it’s not black or white. I think the most important thing is just to have a plan B when you do, otherwise you just have to stay the course and finish the race or in Dory’s words in Finding Nemo, “just keep swimming”.