The Problem with Quitting

Quitting an activity has always been very hard for me.  It’s always an agonizing decision.

I remember when I came to DePauw and I wanted to continue playing my French horn and swim.  This was an impossibility as both practices occurred at the same time and missing one for the other wasn’t something my coach or director was fond or supportive of.  I loved playing my French horn and I was decent at it (of course not after a summer of not playing, but before that).  Maybe I felt like I had played my horn too long and I needed to focus my energy on a different hobby, I’m not sure, but I decided to stop playing my horn and quit band.  This was an awful decision.  I remember telling the director of my decision and practically breaking down in tears because I had been playing an instrument for so long.  Of course, little did I know that I should have kept playing my horn because I loathed swimming for DePauw, but I guess it’s one of those things you (really, I) learn.

When I quit something, the decision is always so hard and it usually involves tears at some point during the process.  Even when the organization is so wrong for me that other people are completely aware of it, I still don’t want to quit!  I get this awful feeling of failure and ask myself “Why couldn’t I make this work?” and “Why did this fail?”  This is even when something is so obviously not working well with my life.  I guess I feel some sort of twisted loyalty to an organization.  Sometimes I just have to learn to let things go, particularly when it will improve my life.