Sometimes quitting is winning
Sometimes quitting is winning
Hey friends,
Society constantly pushes us to the limit. We are often taught that reducing, stopping something or quitting is a failure, a “loser” thing.
Yet, it couldn’t be further from the truth.
Instead of making up fiction story examples I’ll give personal examples.
First, it’ll be about a family member. When he was young he was a great long distance runner. On one hot day he was part of a competition and his heart began to hurt in the middle of the race. He thought it would be dishonorable to stop and kept going. The result? Permanent heart damage and he never competed again.
This is actually more common than we realize. People have too much pride and ego.
Quitting is ok and sometimes it is actually winning.
Second example is my own. Before my son was born I was finishing a horror book. My goal was to create something truly disturbing. However, when my wife found out she was pregnant it made me stop and think;
“Do I want my child to read this in the future?”
The answer was obvious, no. I stopped the project and deleted the book. Looking back years later, I am so happy about that decision.
Quitting was winning.
I hope this helps in your own life.
Blessings!
Totally agree Alexander. I think that often people decide not to give up, even when reality shows that they should, because they see it as a sign of weakness, fragility or incoherence. If you look at their own words, giving up is the opposite of persisting, and that in itself gives rise to cognitive biases about behaviour.
When people feel conditioned by fear, they always think they shouldn't give up, because that would be a sign of giving in to fear.
An example: in sport, is it preferable to give up fighting for first place when you think you can come second? or to keep fighting for first place and end up giving up the race because you kept pushing?
Translated with DeepL.com (free version)
When I started yoga and was talking to my therapist about how good the child's pose that we did at the end of a class felt, he said "Letting go is a powerful thing to do."