In defense of dropping out

A short reflection on why we keep doing the things that make us miserable and three examples of things I've quit (other than jobs), that have made me happier.

When I was in fourth grade, I desperately wanted to drop out of soccer. I wasn’t very good, I could tell I was dragging down my team. It was an age when kids started to get more serious and I knew I didn’t want to get more serious about this sport. When I told my mom, her response was a flat “no” and when I whined enough “whyyyyss” her string of justifications went something along the lines of:

• We finish what we start

• We don’t stop doing something just because it’s hard

• Your teammates are counting on you

So I stuck with it, miserably, for another season. I remember crying at the end of the season in frustration, embarrassed that I was too old to be sobbing over my participation trophy that I knew I had barely earned. I completely understand this instinct in parents to teach their kids stick-to-it-iveness – that’s what we called it on our family. Nobody likes a quitter.

Why do we keep doing the things that make us miserable?

This instinctive need to persevere, to finish what I started carried with me through young adulthood. But at some point in my late 20s, I realized that it’s actually bullshit. We don’t need to finish everything we’ve started. We don’t “owe” it to our teammates. We are only accountable to ourselves, and our loved ones. And in the end, if it makes us miserable, we need to ask ourselves if it’s still worth it?

In many cases, it’s much harder to stop doing something compared to continuing with the status quo. In an unhappy relationship? It’s easier and less disruptive to just continue on rather than face being alone. Dissatisfied with work? Just grit your teeth rather than have to find a new job, come up to speed on a new company’s idiosyncrasies and systems. Have a toxic friend? Just smile and nod and take longer and longer to answer their texts.

But the brave course of action, the action that will lead you to a happier place ultimately, is to make the call. Are you in, or are you out? One of my personal pet peeves is people who complain constantly about a situation that is very much within their own control. Take the step, even if that step is not the conventional one. Break it off. Quit the job. Say goodbye to that friend. It feels damn good.

Photo by dlxmedia.hu on Unsplash

A short list of things I’ve quit (other than jobs) that have made me happier

1. Facebook. In 2014 my husband was in active cancer treatment and I was powering through at a new job. All around me, my friends and acquaintances were getting married and having babies and sharing that joy on Facebook. And I was sitting in a hospital room with my husband who was fighting for his life. I didn’t begrudge them their happiness, but I was in a very different place in my life. I was lamenting about this to a friend, how every time I logged into Facebook, I felt increasingly depressed about my situation, to which my friend replied “Delete Facebook from your phone.” I was stunned, was this even an option? Of course it was. I kept an active profile, but I deleted the Facebook app from my phone. I could still log in if I really wanted to, but I found that without the little red notification bubble, I didn’t feel the compulsion to check Facebook and feel bad about myself anymore.

2. Friends who made me feel bad about myself. When I was younger, I had a few friends who made me feel like shit. Whether they did it on purpose or not, I’ll never know, but they made me deeply unhappy. When I was with them, I always felt less – less smart, less attractive, less funny, you name it. One day I realized that I didn’t need to stay friends with them. There was no dramatic breakup, just a slow fade-away. I guess you could say I ghosted them, but I’m not sure they missed me.

3. Running. Look, I know it’s good exercise and all, and I love to be outdoors and I like to workout (sometimes), but running is just not for me. I tried to force it for years, tracking my miles, running in races, working on PRs. But in the end, my body just isn’t built for running. I dreaded the daily(ish) runs. I never felt that “runner’s high” that people talked about. It was an obligation, a chore. I realized there were other, better ways to get my exercise and hung up my metaphorical running shoes. NOTE that I still use my running shoes all the time for walking, ellipticalling, or chasing my kid at the playground. And shout out to Uncle Scott, if you’re reading this, he’s the creator of the world’s best running and walking shoes.

Dropping out of the workforce

Ever since I dropped out of the full time workforce, so many of my friends and acquaintances have been reaching out to tell me they wish they could drop out too. For some, it’s just not viable at this point in their lives financially. But for others, the only thing that stops them is fear. Fear of financial instability, fear of judgement, fear of the unknown. Fear that they won’t be a whole person without their career. I don’t want to minimize this fear, it’s real and it’s intense. As a career-oriented person who based so much of my self-worth on my work achievements, the idea of just not working was terrifying. I had been the primary breadwinner for my whole adult life and I couldn’t imagine any other way of operating. But as I slowly knocked out each barrier and realized we could make it work financially, that I didn’t care what others thought, that I knew how I would fill my days, it started to feel more and more viable and more and more enticing.

This is my call to you: do you have something that you know you need to drop out of? As mundane as a pottery class or as deep as a relationship. You don’t need to trudge through life holding onto imaginary burdens and obligations, it's ok to drop out!