I'm a Quitter

I always go into things well intentioned.  I volunteered because I wanted more teaching experience.  I let you kiss me because I thought it might lead to us being together.  I took an art class because I thought it would make me happier.

But then comes the middle bit.  Where my decision has sunk into my life, and I finally have to live with whatever choice I made.  The lazy bit of me kicks in.  The whiny part of me starts up.  I want to run away from whatever I've committed to.  Not necessarily because it's hard.  Just because the allure of something else, someone else, some other place seems better.  I don't want to do what I'm doing anymore.

So the question proposes itself: do I stay in the mud, or move to the greener grass?  Our society values perseverance over quitting.  Never giving up is how the American Dream is achieved, right?  But if you don't feel like something is the right fit, should you stick with it?  Especially if you'd be letting other people down?

I did winterguard for half a season my sophomore year of high school.  It was intense and took many long hours.  I would count the minutes until practice was over.  I skipped out on the practices that I could.  I didn't practice my drop spins with my rifle on my own time because I couldn't do it in my house (it wouldn't be hard to break a window with that thing!) and it was 30 degrees outside.  Numb hands don't work well.  There were also a couple x rays involved.  I didn't like spending a good ten hours of my week being yelled at, so I wanted to quit.

I brought it up with my best friend, who did guard for a couple years already.  She told me that people don't quit, especially not so late in the season.  The show has been worked out already and everything.  She made it sound like people would hate me for it.

But my mom wanted me to be happy.  Her solution of when I was doing something, (especially if it was voluntary) and I was unhappy, would be to stop wasting my time with it.  So that next practice, she and I went together and she stood up for me while the head coach attempted to guilt me into staying.  Because insulting someone works so well when you want them to stay.  The day I quit was one of the most freeing days of my life.

My guard ended by not having a very good season.  But we had already had a bad season before that.  I'm not entirely to blame for it.  None of my ex-teammates were really mean about it either.  If anything, some of them stopped after the end of that season too.  The coaches were atrocious.

When I made that decision, I chose myself before everyone else.  Maybe that's selfish.

But don't always criticize the quitter.  Sometimes they might just be making a brave choice, and choosing themselves.