It’s okay to walk away

It isn’t so bad to be a quit­ter. I have quit many things over the course of my life. I quit breast­feed­ing. I quit using dia­pers (though I might fall off that wag­on even­tu­al­ly). I quit putting marsh­mal­low fluff on my peanut but­ter sandwiches. 

Some things I’ve quit were out of my hands: I quit read­ing bed­time sto­ries to my kids because they no longer want­ed them. I quit see­ing my physi­cian because she moved to anoth­er state. But I have been a delib­er­ate quit­ter in many areas of life, and I don’t think that’s nec­es­sar­i­ly a bad thing.

In mid­dle school, I quit the chess team. It did not bring me joy — it was a rather bor­ing way to spend my after­noons. I start­ed spend­ing them on oth­er pur­suits and was much hap­pi­er for it. In high school, I quit play­ing sports. I wasn’t very good at them and didn’t real­ly enjoy them. I joined the­ater instead and was much hap­pi­er. In col­lege, I quit my first job. The work envi­ron­ment was hos­tile and rife with inci­vil­i­ty. The pay was fan­tas­tic, but nowhere near enough to jus­ti­fy the con­stant dra­ma and stress.

But let’s talk about the big quits. I quit med­ical school. I didn’t quit because it wasn’t fun — it real­ly was. I love to learn, and med­ical school gives you lots of oppor­tu­ni­ties to learn. I quit because I had a star­tling and some­what ter­ri­fy­ing rev­e­la­tion. During a learn­ing expe­ri­ence in which stu­dents were placed with var­i­ous physi­cians over sev­er­al days in diverse set­tings, I real­ized that their work was not some­thing I want­ed to spend my life doing. 

People don’t like it when you quit med­ical school. They try to talk you out of it — aggres­sive­ly. They work to per­suade you that you’ll regret doing it. They make every effort to steer you back onto the track so you’ll fin­ish what you started. 

But I quit.

I quit teach­ing high school. I love teach­ing and I love teenagers. The first time I set foot in a class­room, I was hooked. I had nev­er had so much fun in my life. Teaching high school was amaz­ing and reward­ing, but after sev­en­teen years, I was burn­ing out. As much as I loved work­ing with young peo­ple and being part of their jour­ney, it no longer brought me the joy it once had. I was ready to try some­thing new. 

People don’t like it when you quit teach­ing. They remind you of the hard work you’ve put in and the retire­ment you’re so close to reach­ing. They point out all that you’re throw­ing away and why it’s a mistake. 

But I quit.

I quit bed­side nurs­ing. I worked hard to earn my BSN and that RN after my name, and I’m proud to have done both. I loved work­ing with patients and fam­i­lies. I espe­cial­ly loved end-of-life care — there’s some­thing so inti­mate about help­ing some­one make the tran­si­tion out of this exis­tence. But after only a short time, I was ready to give up the twelve-hour shifts, the on-call week­ends, and the hol­i­days away from my family. 

People don’t like it when you quit nurs­ing. They point out the short­ages. They remind you of the huge pay cut you’ll face when leav­ing the field the way I did. They bar­gain with you over work­ing con­di­tions, sched­ules, and the like. 

But I quit.

I will like­ly quit many more things in the years to come. I will quit jobs. I will quit hob­bies. I may even quit putting salt on my ice cream. 

What can I say? I am a quitter. 

But I don’t think that’s a bad thing. We place so much empha­sis on stick­ing with things. We pride our­selves on being able to endure. We tell our chil­dren not to be quit­ters. We push them — and oth­ers — to keep at things, even when they no longer bring joy (if they ever did). 

Why? As far as I can tell, you don’t get any mul­li­gans in the game of life. So while I agree that quit­ting should nev­er be done flip­pant­ly or with­out care­ful thought and con­tem­pla­tion, if some­thing in your life no longer brings you joy, it’s okay to be a quitter.