I don't think we talk about quitting in the right way. We have a culture that is obsessed with finishing things. Finish that class. Finish that book. Do whatever you have to do, but don't quit. I think this view, while admirable, is too strict. Too often, we spend so much time making a destination the goal, that we don't stop to consider the pros and cons of the journey.
Any efficient and useful system has to have slack built in. Without slack, a system becomes way too confined. Think of a car with no airbag, or a plane with no parachute. In many ways, the option to quit is what provides that slack.
There will be many high achieving people that look at what I'm saying here with a reasonable amount of contempt. Their belief is that the world is split up in some distribution of winners and losers, and my advice is only applicable to a group they don't identify with. But the truth is that winning also requires quitting in other areas of life.
The colloquial term for what I'm referring to is sacrifice, but it's all the same thing. The basketball player who quits football, and soccer to focus on one sport. The IC who quits management to focus on honing their skills. The successful entrepreneur who quits working on their business to focus on their family. All of these people are quitters in some sense, but when you see the quality of their experiences increase over time, its clear they made the right call.
Author Devin Kelly has a couple relevant points here from his piece on not finishing that I thought really nailed the silent questions we don't ask ourselves about why we do the things we do.
I was thinking of my own story: the story I would tell *after * I had done the thing, a story of hardship, of relentless pursuit through struggle, of accomplishment. But while I was telling myself that story, I missed out on the story I was living in and choosing not to see
The problem he so thoughtfully calls out is that our fixation on reaching the end often blinds us to the richness of life's in-between moments. Achievement is made in a moment, but joy and fulfillment happen over a lifetime. So what happens when you end up missing out on the laughter and joy of the moment, because you're chasing the high of some conclusion. What if instead, we could think of quitting as a means of reclaiming time that was otherwise misappropriated?
Life is way too short to spend it on things that no longer serve you. Sometimes, starting fresh with something is far better than persistence out of perceived necessity. That being said, knowing when to stay and when to move on is an art, not a science. Often times, its only hindsight that clarifies what to do. The wisdom to know the difference is a skill in itself—one you can't develop if you don't realize it's an option.
I have a shirt in my closet that has the words "Its not over until you quit" on it, but maybe it should actually say "Its never too late to quit".