I had a tête-à-tête with my father this afternoon. He’s been working at the same place for 25 years and he’s thinking of quitting and taking up another venture. He’s trying to find another challenge to tackle to keep himself busy.
This got me thinking about the notion of “forever”, be it in the context of staying at a workplace “forever”, relationship or something else. Have we as a society turned “forever” into the only acceptable definition of success?
If you open a book shop and run it for a while and it makes you happy but then stuff gets too stressful and expensive and you want to do something else and you need to close it, it’s labelled as a “failed business”.
If you write a book or two and you then decide you don’t actually want to keep doing that, you’re a “failed” writer.
If you marry someone and that marriage is good for a while and then stops working and you get divorced, it’s a “failed” marriage.
The only acceptable “win condition” is you keep doing that thing forever.
A friendship that lasts for a few years but then it’s time is done and you move on is considered less valuable or not a “real” friendship. A hobby that you do for a while and then are done with is a “phase”- or alternatively, a “pity” that you don’t do that thing any more.
I believe, something can be good and it can end. That doesn’t lessen the value of the thing. And it’s okay to be sad that it ended, too. But the idea that anything that ends is automatically less than this hypothetical eternal state of success is not something that may be ideal.
The saying “try again, but don’t quit” is something that is frequently said. But is quitting a bad thing?
Based on my reflection, Quitting is a normal part of life. In our jobs, marriages, friendships and business ventures, there will be moments when quitting is the wisest option. Don’t get me wrong, I understand the need for hard work and putting in effort to achieve worthwhile goals. Change can be incredibly uncomfortable, especially if it’s unknown what choices you’ll get moving forward. The temptation to give up during a rough patch is a natural part of that process.
But “toughing out” situations that no longer serve us, or are harmful, makes little sense. In situations like these, I try not to react to my immediate impulse, which often leads me to regret the decision I made due to heightened emotions. It seems wiser to take a while, reflect and let the situation dissolve into something I can logically make sense of and then decide.
P.S. Here’s something that intrigued me.
