Be a Quitter

You see signs up along the freeway encouraging kids not to quit. And sure, I agree that kids should keep going to school, should keep trying hard things. But I feel like we are a culture that sometimes uncritically assumes that continuing to throw yourself at the same thing again and again is a good thing and a sign of determination and courage. It is not necessarily true. Continuing to do something that isn’t working for you may be stupid and unproductive.

There is a time for quitting. There are a lot of times for quitting, in fact. This weekend at a race where the weather had turned dangerously bad, one of my Ragnar teammates, Marion Jensen, was out on a muddy trail, wishing that the race officials would call the race so he could turn back. At some point, he acknowledged to himself that the conditions were dangerous. He realized that hoping for someone else to tell him what he already knew was stupid. He turned around, and ended up bringing 40 people back with him who might otherwise have had to have been rescued from the course that night (others DID have to be rescued).

The rest of the weekend, we drove home and talked about why we are driven to do things that we know are dangerous. I myself had been lying in a tent, listening to the rain and hoping that somehow I wouldn’t have to go out in the cold because my team was counting on me to be the “tough” one. It was much the same as Marion’s situation as our team captain.

The need to not be the one who quits is a cultural one, driven by our culture’s obsessive heroicizing those who persist under difficult circumstances. We lionize these heroes with TV coverage and tours. We rarely talk about the people who did nearly the same things and died. They must not have been as tough or as strong. They don’t have lessons to teach us. Or do they?

Choosing to “quit” or not is an important moment, and it’s not a good thing that our rational nature is being overwhelmed because of the need to appear in a certain way to those around us. Quitting is not inherently less smart or less valiant. Choosing to circumvent social expectation is brave. Choosing to speak out against the choices others are making is not going to make you likeable, but it’s courageous.

I quit teaching at the university level to follow my dream to become a writer. It was one of the most difficult things I had ever done, emotionally and psychologically. I remember someone told me, “No one gets a PhD and then does nothing with it.” Like it was an obligation, once I’d started down a certain path, to continue going down it. But it wasn’t the right path for me. I don’t regret starting down the path, but I also don’t regret quitting. I had gotten far enough along it to learn a lot, and to see that I needed a new path.

I’ve DNF’d (Did Not Finish) in very few races in my life. But both times, I knew I was right to quit. If I had kept going, I would have risked more serious injuries than the ones I already had, and possibly would have endangered others. Do I sometimes wish that I could change the course of time and go back and “fix” those races so that I was able to finish them? Yes, I do. But it’s stupid, really, because those races taught me important things about my body and its limits, things that have served me well over the years.

Sure, quitting because something is difficult or because of one bad experience isn’t a good idea. You also shouldn’t quit just because other people tell you you’re not good enough. But quitting because you’ve made a rational choice not to continue is a good thing and we should laud it more. Think about some of the great quitters in the history of the world. Here’s a list of school dropouts who went on to do important things: http://www.buzzfeed.com/ashleyperez/23-famous-dropouts-who-turned-out-just-fine#.sm3j0QQZjZ