The art of abandoning your ideas

You’re a quitter. 

At least, you have been. 

As a child you may have been way into dinosaurs or ballet or firetrucks or mermaids. You are probably not way into those things anymore. You quit them! 

You found other hobbies and interests that serve you much better now. 

Except maybe you haven’t touched those hobbies recently, either. Maybe you haven’t picked up a paint brush in years. Maybe your guitar is gathering dust. Maybe the thought of starting another novel reminds you of all the other novels you started but haven’t finished.

Quitting is not good or bad. Quitting is just something we do. The things we choose to quit? Those are good and bad. Or maybe…they’re right and wrong. For us. 

There’s an art to abandoning your ideas. There are things that are good to quit and things that are bad to quit. There are no classes on what’s right or wrong for you to quit. No one can tell you exactly what to do. That’s where the art comes in. 

But here are some pointers, from one quitter to another:

• If the thing doesn’t serve you anymore, think about quitting. 

• If it doesn’t capture your imagination, if you’re not daydreaming about it, think about quitting. 

• If you spend time daydreaming about it, please, please don’t quit. 

• If you feel like you’re doing it for someone else, think about quitting. 

• If you feel an ache about the fact that you don’t do it as often as you like, please don’t quit. 

Don’t quit the thing that gives you life for an arbitrary reason.