Have you cons
idered the notion that maybe you should walk away? If people have made choices for you that you wouldn’t make for yourself, maybe it’s better to just quit.
Having said that, let’s recognize a few things: No one likes a quitter and no one wants to be one; quitting is complicated – it comes loaded with a lot of consequences.
Another thing we need to see is that there is too much quitting in our lives. Quitting is the inevitable byproduct of living in a culture with too many options. Walk onto a car lot and you could find yourself talking all day with a salesman about options. Walk down the grocery store aisles and you may find yourself spending far too long reading how much fiber is in the various brands of granola.
Even better, if you make a mistake in what you choose, you can usually undo or replace your choice. When a dog chewed up my LL Bean briefcase, we mailed it off and they replaced it.
All the options make commitment itself optional. In a society where every website seems to have a shopping cart and filling them takes just a few clicks of your mouse, we teach our children to keep their options open. And in doing so, we inadvertently teach them some lessons about quitting.
Think of all the things we quit that used to be considered permanent but now find optional: our homes, our churches, our marriages and our jobs. Join any of a hundred club-like organizations available to you: Delta Skymiles Club, Costco, or Facebook, to name a few, and you’ll find yourself reading the fine print at the bottom of the agreement you signed, wondering about the penalties for quitting.
But quitting can be a good thing too. What if you make a mistake – a really serious life-altering one? Like the choice as to how you see yourself and where you get your strokes from. When you sign up for a lifestyle that locks you into an identity that feels false, you may find yourself wondering how to get off the merry-go-round. When you feel trapped by having to live up to other people’s concepts of who you are, quitting may be exactly the right thing to do.
Waking up and seeing yourself as a part of a crowd of lemmings moving toward a precipice is better than actually going over it. At some point, it makes sense to abandon your current course of action. And it’s in that light that Jesus is calling many of us to walk away from the career track that others have mapped out for us. The price of going with the flow is just too high.
This is the only life we’ve been given – we need to figure out how to live it to the fullest. God has a purpose for our lives and we may not have fulfilled it yet. We may need to quit the safe path we’re on to follow one that appears more dangerous and narrow.*
*”But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a
few find it.” (Matthew 7:14)
Thanks Seth.
This came at a good time as it has hit me that there are some things in my life that are not bad not not good that I need to “quit” and walk away from. Though not “bad” they are “bad” b/c they don’t draw me closer to Christ. This blog was just a good reminder of what I was almost thinking about needing to change.
Beth
This is good. “All the options make commitment itself optional.”
Interesting. Thanks man.
Awesome words Bro.
Thanks. I needed to read this today.
Above quote, “other people’s concepts of who you are, quitting may be exactly the right thing to do.” Not to be confused with quitting on the person, but the turmoil in the relationship that does not edify anyone.
Yes, exactly. It is a very hard thing to do,as Christians, we can continue to convince ourselves that we are doing a ‘good’ thing, when in fact, we need to be doing the “GOD” thing….which is walking away. That just might allow the space that the other person needs to draw nearer to Christ.
Seth Godin’s The Dip is a great resource for those struggling with when to quit. Love it. 60 pages. Highly recommend it.
Commitment is good, but quitting when we are locked in to expectations superimposed by others is even better.
I have just finally come to the point in my life where my choices are really breaking free from being influenced by expectations or impressions that have been lingering for years.
I am quitting being a people pleaser.
I am quitting those things that interfere with me truly being present to family.
I am quitting yelling as an option for communication, and I used to be a real yeller, let me tell you…
I am quitting holding on to worthless things because I might just need it sometime.
I am quitting being defined by others.
And so much more. And finally coming to life. Full life.