The Power of Giving Up

We kind of fetishize persistence in this country.

Just keep going, we say. Never give up, we say. JK Rowling got rejected a lot! Michael Jordan was cut from his high school basketball team! Never give up!

What pernicious crap this is.  Because, like all our positive thinking bullshit, it implies that if you never became a professional basketball player, IT'S YOUR FAULT BECAUSE YOU GAVE UP. You know, you should have just worked really hard like Michael Jordan and believed in yourself and stuff, and then you could have been an NBA star! Superstar, even!

But the thing is, almost nobody makes it to the NBA. Here's some data from the NCAA on men's basketball:

So three out of every ten thousand high school basketball players will play professional basketball. So, if you get cut from your high school team, giving up on that NBA dream is probably a good call. Indeed, even if you don't get cut but you are not the best player in your league, you should probably give up on the dream of going pro.

Ever watch the painful first few episodes of American Idol?  I followed one season, and the thing I really liked was in those painful auditions when Simon would tell the people who came in and completely couldn't sing, "this is not your thing. You should stop doing this and do something else. This is not where your gifts lie."  

Simon Cowell is famous for being a dick, but this always struck me as a great kindness. What good advice! What a refreshing antidote to the "don't give up ever because all it takes to succeed is wanting it bad enough" bullshit that pervades our culture!

In the educational realm, kids are now being asked to show "grit." What this means in an educational context is "continuing to work really hard on something even after you realize it's stupid bullshit."

Now, this is a skill that most employers value, to be sure, but it's not a character trait. But they pitch this kind of relentless obedience as a character trait. And then they penalize kids for not showing this. Because apparently you have to be persistent, even when the thing you're supposed to be persisting at is manifestly a waste of time and energy. (Shoutout to Alfie Kohn for this piece, which destroys the "grit" fad.)

Some people even carry this obsession with persistence into their personal lives. But despite what rom-coms would have you believe, you can't pester someone into liking you back. When your interest and/or affection aren't returned, don't persist. Give up and go find someone who will actually like you back.

Now obviously some things are worth working hard at and sometimes persistence is rewarded, but sometimes there's great power in giving up. It allows you to take charge of where your energy is going and perhaps pursue a different goal than the one you keep not achieving.

I'm thinking about this because I have given up on having a bestselling novel that becomes the basis for a hit movie. I'd like to have those things, and I spent years wanting those things really bad and even building up a substantial credit card debt against the gigantic payday that I believed was around the corner. (Because I really wanted it! How could "the universe" not grant my wish?)  But in something like this, wanting it doesn't matter. Hard work doesn't matter. You need a certain baseline level of talent, but after that, it's pretty much all luck.

Indeed, one publishing professional said of a guy with a few bestselling novels and a successful movie based on one of them: "He's not any better than Brendan. He's just had better luck." So, great. I could continue to beat my head against that brick wall until I die, but giving up on that dream was actually quite liberating.  Because then I didn't have to worry as much about what other people thought. I could write stuff that pleased me instead of worrying about how stuff was going to sell. I was able to make room for goals and dreams I might actually be able to achieve. And I was able to focus a little bit more on the stuff in my life that really matters. 

I haven't given up on writing because I like it a lot. But I gave up on longing for bestsellerdom, and, as a result, I've had more fun writing and I'm way less bitter--okay, okay, marginally less bitter--than I was before.

So if you've been wasting a lot of time and energy pursuing something that's just not happening, instead of redoubling your efforts, maybe consider giving up. It can really improve your life.