The graceful art of giving up
every day
we hear and read things from people who
are experts
in their field they’ll tell us how to
change our habits and hobbies
to become the best possible versions of
ourselves
they’re scholars and professionals each
with a lifetime of experience in their
areas of expertise
i am no different i’m an expert
singularly qualified in the art of
giving up
for over 20 years now i have been
collecting data
to distill the art of giving up into an
exact science
in the interest of research i have
successfully quit learning three
languages
four instruments and five youth sports
teams
when you combine that with the various
jobs relationships
and activities i’ve also left i feel
confident today
in saying that i am an expert quitter
towel thrower
and flag waver but here’s the catch
you all are too everyone watching right
now
has and will quit tens or hundreds of
things in the coming years
a person will work on average 12 jobs in
their lifetime
80 percent of university students will
change their major before graduation
we’ll all have multiple partners or
plans that have a higher probability for
failure than success
yet when the time comes for us to quit
something that we know is unhealthy or
unfulfilling
oftentimes we’re unprepared
we live in a society that views quitting
as an act of supreme weakness
selfishness laziness or insert whatever
adjective you’d like
but this is at odds with the fact that
quitting is not a rare occurrence
so the next time we want to articulate
to our friends and family colleagues and
co-workers
just exactly how we’d like to withdraw
we’ll use my proprietary
cutting edge acronym i’m out
don’t have time to help a friend with
that extra project i’m out
another class you took on isn’t
everything you thought it would be i’m
out
so what exactly does i mount me well
let’s start with our first letter
i intuition
our intuition is a biological warning
for things that aren’t good for us
and in a world filled with rules and
systems it can be hard to remember to
listen to these
unconscious deeply ingrained indicators
of stress and anxiety
take the thing you want to quit for
example ask yourself how it makes you
feel on a purely emotional level
maybe it’s the stress of making small
talk at an upcoming party
the anxiety of dealing with an irritable
boss or coach
or maybe it’s the anxiety that comes
from standing on a circle of red carpet
giving a ted talk in front of a live
stream full of strangers and trying not
to throw up
these are relatable feelings and once
we’ve identified
how our various jobs and obligations
make us feel on a purely intuitive level
we can move on to our next letter m
measurement let’s quantify those
feelings of anxiety and nervousness
this is the emotional cost of the thing
you want to quit
the want to leave the thing is weighed
against the need to do the thing
we all may want to quit our jobs but we
need money
because money can be exchanged for goods
and services
we also want to stop worrying about what
others think we want to stop
thinking about factors outside of our
control and how to fit in
these things cannot be exchanged for
goods and services and oftentimes can
actually make us lose sight of the
things that we
really do need to do that are good for
our well-being the
expert quitter recognizes the things
that can and cannot be quit just
overnight
and to begin that quitting process
requires oh
outsourcing quitting ain’t easy even
when you know you want to quit
you can’t do it in a vacuum what will
our parents think
colleagues co-workers they’re counting
on us now the
o sound here in imout could easily stand
for honesty but then this acronym
would say i’m hut which i feel has just
slightly less of a ring to it
outsourcing our quitting though is an
easy and effective way to lessen the
stress of withdrawing
and it all begins with honesty rely on
resources an hr department teachers
friends and family
where you can advocate for your needs or
at least if the roles are reverse
let’s understand another’s decision to
step away confide in friends and family
who you know will practice
you understanding our society
places incredible pressure on all of us
to do
and be more every day masculine
stereotyping asks that men
persevere and show no struggle outdated
feminine biases demand that
women shoulder excessive burdens and
voice no complaint
and this is all compounded for
non-binary individuals and
other minority groups who can already
feel that institutions are designed
against them for these individuals
advocating for their needs may only make
things worse
understanding these nuanced stigmas and
the lack of control we have over them
can help us from feeling ambushed by
them as we quit
but above all let’s remember to be
understanding to ourselves before
anything else
because at the end of the day you’re the
one who’s quitting for you no one else
and doesn’t that feel good only t will
tell
and t stands for time
once we’ve done all that work to quit
and quit honestly
in a way that considers our needs and
the needs of others
it can feel tempting to jump right back
in on that next thing
after all wasn’t the reason we quit in
the first place to free ourselves up for
something else
the world we live in places such a
premium on doing
and if you’re not filled with tasks and
projects reading novels writing your
novel what are you doing to improve
yourself
but actually human beings do a lot of
valuable things with their free time
from cave paintings to cat videos it’s
incredible to see what you
i or anyone will come up with when they
have the space to pursue their interests
the final step in the i’m out process
asks for you to sit with the space
created from withdrawing
maybe you’ll decide that you can handle
it after all
or maybe you’ll just relax seriously
in terms of sudden relief instant
gratification and a rush of dopamine
i believe that giving up can fit
squarely between a venn diagram of sex
and drugs and if that’s not intuition
right there
i don’t know what is so quit something
and soon
it might just save your life because who
knows you could decide
you could handle it after all maybe
you’ll have the courage to take things
in a whole new direction
either way there’s no shame in realizing
that sometimes
in life the best thing to do is just
you