To quit or not to quit? We have heard this quote, 'Don't quit, it is only the weak who quits' a lot of times. The social labels "quitter", "loser" condition us to think that quitting is a bad decision, a shameful one. But knowing when to quit and having the courage to act upon is the real strength.
It's the power of trusting yourself and your decision, that helps you grow in to the person you envision.
Stay tuned, stay compassionate and always be kind to yourself.
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Until next time, keep spreading the sunshine!"
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[00:00:00] Hello Sunshine, how was your week Bill?
[00:00:18] Don't quit, it's for losers.
[00:00:20] How many times have you all heard this growing up?
[00:00:24] How many times do you hear people shaming someone because they quit something they alone knew
[00:00:30] was not good for them?
[00:00:32] Was not good for their body, their mind or their soul?
[00:00:36] Society and its conditioning will give you these labels. Quitter, loser, lazy. We make people feel shameful for doing what they did.
[00:00:52] But in reality, knowing when to quit, whether it's a job, a relationship, a situation, a
[00:01:01] city is a very, very important life skill.
[00:01:06] And actually quitting may be an important step towards becoming who you truly are and
[00:01:11] living a life that you truly won't.
[00:01:15] Let me share the story, the story of this very dear friend of mine.
[00:01:20] He comes from a very small town.
[00:01:22] He said, ever since I was 10 years old I stopped answering the question of what do you want to be when you grow up.
[00:01:29] I started telling anyone who would listen to me that I wanted to be an engineer.
[00:01:34] And I'm not sure how that happened, but around that time I stopped having fun.
[00:01:41] I stopped doing what other 10 and 12 year old boys my age were doing. I stopped
[00:01:45] singing, I stopped going out. All I knew I had to do was study, study, study and more
[00:01:52] study because I thought the only path for me was engineering. And then when I was 19 years
[00:02:00] old, I quit the only dream that I ever always had. I was in the conference room of
[00:02:07] college with a bunch of other kids. And everything flipped in an instant. I realized by then
[00:02:16] that engineering was not something I enjoyed. But I knew I couldn't give it up because that
[00:02:22] is what I had told everybody I wanted to do.
[00:02:28] A part of me felt that I had to complete it.
[00:02:37] But that day, the professor, although he was an aging man, had won a very smart, crisp shirt, was dressed up rather smartly, I must say.
[00:02:41] And he proceeded to give us what might be the single most boring presentation I have
[00:02:47] ever endured in my lifetime.
[00:02:50] And there, right there, I saw myself.
[00:02:54] And what I saw was not a passionate engineer living the dream.
[00:02:59] I saw a man whose soul had withered in a corner.
[00:03:04] And the rest of him was just dragging his body around.
[00:03:07] And that is what I saw of myself.
[00:03:10] If I pursued that, just then I felt if this is what life defines as passionate, I no longer
[00:03:20] want any part in this.
[00:03:23] I abandoned my childhood dream that night.
[00:03:27] I quit my engineering career before I'd even started it.
[00:03:31] And believe me, I had never quit anything before in life.
[00:03:36] I was a teenager still and I was extremely worried about what others
[00:03:40] would say, how they would react.
[00:03:43] And not just my peers and my friends and people
[00:03:47] who were my neighbors but my relatives and most importantly my parents because I would
[00:03:54] proudly watch my parents tell everyone he's going to be an engineer and my biggest fear
[00:04:00] quitting was letting them down. I thought that their excitement meant that
[00:04:06] they were heavily invested in me being an engineer. That they'd imagine my
[00:04:13] entire life to look a certain way and that they would definitely be disappointed
[00:04:18] if I didn't get there. I knew that engineer or at least I thought that was a profession, engineer's
[00:04:27] a profession, was something that they held in high esteem. And if I became anything else,
[00:04:34] it would be just that less than. But I had to quit anyway, I knew that. And it turned
[00:04:41] out that I quit and what quitting taught me was that it's okay to change your mind.
[00:04:47] Nobody cares what you do and that I could not sell my peace of mind and happiness for any sort of external validation.
[00:04:56] I did tell my parents and they did not get angry, nor did they say anything to me.
[00:05:05] I found out that my parents were only excited about engineering because they thought I was.
[00:05:11] I later switched my major to psychology and then political science and then through winning
[00:05:16] English literature in the mix and a later end rule for a program for a course actually in journalism.
[00:05:26] And they went and told everyone very proudly that I was a journalist.
[00:05:32] You know the funny thing is, although I understood and learned
[00:05:37] all of these things like you know nobody really cares, nobody is really paying too much attention
[00:05:42] that it's actually your life that really matters, the act of quitting didn't become any easier for me. In fact, it was as if I
[00:05:52] felt I could never quit anything again because I had already quit something major once, so
[00:05:58] I persevered. And a lot of other things when I probably should not have. And it was only maybe a decade or so later that I fully embraced the concept of quitting as self-care.
[00:06:12] And I'm not talking about quitting things like smoking or alcohol or sugar.
[00:06:19] I'm talking about quitting things that don't serve you or spark joy.
[00:06:24] talking about quitting things that don't serve you or spark joy.
[00:06:29] I recently had gotten in touch with him to ask him if it was okay that I shared the story on my podcast.
[00:06:32] And he was more than happy.
[00:06:33] He said, yeah, sure, go ahead and share it.
[00:06:35] But it got me thinking, you know, I needed to make those changes in my life.
[00:06:42] And I'm not one to make resolutions, but I did make one at the
[00:06:45] beginning of this year. I decided rather than thinking about the things that I
[00:06:51] would do, I thought about the things that I wouldn't do and that I was no
[00:06:56] longer willing to put up with. And I'd like to conclude this with a word of advice from Ussai Ussar Amapore, author
[00:07:07] of Impossible is Stupid.
[00:07:10] Quitting is not giving up.
[00:07:12] It's choosing to focus your attention on something more important.
[00:07:17] Quitting is not losing confidence.
[00:07:19] It's realizing that there are more valuable ways you can spend your time.
[00:07:24] Quitting is not making excuses. It's learning to be more productive efficient and effective instead
[00:07:31] Quitting is letting go of things or people that are sucking the life out of you
[00:07:37] So you can do more things that will bring you strength
[00:07:41] So years to each one of us
[00:07:44] Realizing that it's okay to quit, whether it's a situation,
[00:07:50] whether it's a relationship or whether it's just a silly habit which is sucking the joy
[00:07:55] out of us and is not making us feel happy anymore.
[00:08:00] We'll speak to you again next week. Take good care of yourselves.
[00:08:06] So much love to each one of you.
[00:08:08] Bye for now.