Quitting doesn't always equal failure

I grew up believing that quitting was paramount to failure. That's not to say that I've never quit a project, a job, or a relationship, because I have.  I just haven't let go without beating myself up with guilt and/or second-guessing my decision, not only in terms of the consequences, but also in terms of what quitting said about me as a person.

The belief that quitting equals failure doesn't take into consideration that some people, myself included, tend to overcommit, which by definition means that we've taken on more than we can comfortably do. While our intentions may be pure and our motives just, there are only so many hours in the day. By the time you deduct the time necessary to take care of the essential business of daily living, there's only so much time left for anything else. 

Then there's the issue of goals and desires.  Things change, and so do people.  The dream job that inspired us at 30 may no longer excite the flames of passion at 50.  People change, and so does technology, the workplace, and the economy.  Even if we still love the professions we chose, circumstances may dictate course corrections in order to survive financially in today's marketplace.  Friendships that worked years ago may no longer be compatible with the person we've become as we've matured and learned life lessons the hard way. Our definitions of success may have changed along with our understanding about what truly matters in life.

Thanks to a recent article by Laurie at Quips and Tips for Achieving Your Goals, I'm reminded that not only is it OK to let go of dreams, desires, and even commitments we may have made to ourselves or others in the past, quitting may even be healthy.

So, if there's a character flaw involved in quitting, perhaps it's in taking on more than we can accomplish in the first place, recognizing the reality of our current situation, or an acknowledgement of the ways in which we've changed an grown...rather than a lack of commitment or completion issues.  At least I'd like to think so.

Gardening it forward

Yesterday I struck up a conversation with a women in the gardening department at Home Depot. After talking about our respective gardens for a while (hers being much more established than mine) she said she was going home to thin out some of her favorite flowers and had been trying unsuccessfully to find a good home for them. She asked if I lived nearby, and if so, if I might be interested.  Absolutely!

A few hours later she was showing me her lovely gardens, full of beautiful flowers and plants I'd never seen before.  And, she had already prepared about 10 different cuttings for me to bring home.  I offered to pay her, but she smiled and said "No, this is what gardeners do.  When it's time, you can pay it forward from your gardens."

What a beautiful gift and a more beautiful challenge to pay it forward.

The hypocrisy of false positives

I've always prided myself on being one who sees the glass as being half full rather than half empty.  No matter what the circumstances, I've always been able to find the silver lining and convince myself that happier days were right around the corner.

In recent weeks I've come to question that strategy.  I'm beginning to wonder if as a society we do ourselves a disservice by insisting that presenting a positive spin to the world, and to ourselves, is the only appropriate way to get through a difficult period in our lives.

Why do we think less of people who are unable to remain upbeat and optimistic when their lives are falling apart around them?  Why do we rush to repeat callous cliches like "It could be worse," "This too shall pass," or "Nobody said life was fair"?  Have those declarations, and others like them, ever made any person feel any better?  It's doubtful.

How many times have we been told, or told our children, that if we study hard, play by all the rules, and do our best, that we can do and be anything?  I'm certain there are countless un- and under-employed people with advanced degrees who'd beg to differ.  The world is full of people who have studied hard, worked hard, withstood the odds, done their best, and still can't find a decent job.

How often have we perpetrated the myth of Cinderella and her dashing Prince, convincing our precious daughters, and our own wounded selves, that if we are loving enough, patient enough, or giving enough, our Prince will come and we'll live happily ever after.  The world is full of wonderful, loving, caring people, both men and women, whose hearts have been broken time and time again.

I understand the philosophy behind positive thinking, and I can clearly see the downside of thinking negatively, but why must the only two options be the extremes?  While expecting the worst all the time would be terribly depressing, most of us know that our worst fears rarely come to fruition, which means that we're bound to be pleasantly surprised at least some of the time.  On the other hand, constantly expecting the best, only to be disappointed time and time again, gets to be terribly depressing after a while too.

Here's a novel concept.  Instead of wasting time trying to figure out whether I should be perceiving the glass as half empty or half full, maybe I'll just see the glass as it is.  And the next time I want to "help" someone who's feeling down about their circumstances to snap out of it, I'll simply let them know I hear them and wish them well.

UPDATE:  I wrote this post yesterday.  Today I was reading posts on a writer forum I belong to and a woman wrote that she had just been diagnosed with a rapidly metastasizing form of breast cancer.  A well-meaning person wrote back "Just remember... this too shall pass." I'm sure the guy didn't mean it the way it sounded, but when someone is fighting a potentially fatal disease, does it really help to remind them that this too shall PASS?  This is exactly what I'm talking about.  Why is it that we've become so quick to put a positive spin on everything, no matter how difficult or painful, that we lose common sense and decency?

Photo by Mr. Keef

Social media is here to stay

I must admit that I've been very slow to jump on the social media bandwagon.  I have Facebook and LinkedIn accounts, but I don't use them much and I'm sure I only touch the surface when it comes to all the features available.  I don't understand why people think anyone would want to know that they just ate a giant bowl of Ben & Jerry's Ice Cream, it's snowing outside, or that they just finished cleaning up after a sick puppy.

As annoying as the personal updates are, in many ways the "professional" updates are worse.  Constant contact isn't necessarily productive or effective content.    I often wonder how successful some professionals can possibly be if they spend all day every day sending out tweets, Facebook updates, and changes to their LinkedIn profiles.  I simply find the never-ending updates and links hawking goods and services that I don't want or need to be very intrusive and irritating.

Perhaps it's because I'm an HSP/introvert that I find it all so overwhelming.  Or maybe I'm just old-school.  Whatever the reason, I'd better find a way to get used to it, because it looks like social media is here to stay. It pains me to say that, but I'm afraid it's true.  Don't believe me, check out this video, then you decide.

Icon image by mfinley designs.

Forgiveness

The subject of forgiveness has been a ongoing theme for me for some time now - longer than I like to admit.  I've experienced a lot of pain in my life, and I've had lots of experience at forgiving.  However, I'm still fascinated by the process, particularly the correlation (or lack of it) between the intensity of the hurt and my relationship with the person who hurt me.  

While I could spend time analyzing how and why I forgive, or don't, it's irrelevant.  What matters is that forgiveness is something that I have to do, whether I want to or not, and whether it's easy or not.  It's not something I need to do for the people who've hurt me.  It's something I need to do for myself.  I've written more about the importance of forgiveness and the specific challenges of forgiving a family member at Suite101.

An open letter to boomers

I wish I'd written this post, but I didn't.  I found it today on LinkedIn, posted by David on the Aspiring Writers Group board.  He says he didn't write it either, but he doesn't think that the original author would mind if others shared it.  I tend to agree, so here it is, reposted in its entirety as I found it.

WE ARE AWESOME !!!

No matter what our kids and the new generation think about us, 

WE ARE AWESOME !!! 

OUR Lives are LIVING PROOF !!! 

To Those of Us Born between 1925 - 1970 : 

~~~~~~~~~ 

TO ALL THE KIDS WHO SURVIVED THE 1930s, '40s, '50s, '60s and '70s!! 

First, we survived being born to mothers who may have smoked and/or drank while they were pregnant. 

They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, tuna from a can, and didn't get tested for diabetes. Then, after that trauma, we were put to sleep on our tummiesin baby cribs covered with bright colored lead-based paints.We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, locks on doors or cabinets, and, when we rode our bikes,we had baseball caps,not helmets, on our heads.As infants and children, we would ride in cars with no car seats, no booster seats, no seat belts, no air bags, bald tires and sometimes no brakes..Riding in the back of a pick- up truck on a warm day was always a special treat. We drank water from the garden hose and not from a bottle. We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle, and no one actually died from this. We ate cupcakes, white bread, real butter, and bacon. We drank Kool-Aid made with real white sugar. And we weren't overweight. WHY?Because we were always outside playing...that's why! We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on.No one was able to reach us all day.--And, we were OKAY. 

We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then ride them down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes.. After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem..We did not have Play Stations, Nintendos and X-boxes. There were no video games, no 150 channels on cable, no video movies or DVDs, no surround-sound or CDs, no cell phones, no personal computers, no Internet and no chat rooms. WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them! We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth, and there were no lawsuits from those accidents. We would get spankings with wooden spoons, switches, belt, ping-pong paddles, or just a bare hand, and no one would call child services to report abuse. We ate worms, and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever. We were given BB guns for our 10th birthdays, made up games with sticks and tennis balls, and -although we were told it would happen- we did not put out very many eyes. We rode bikes or walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just walked in and talked to them. Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team.Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment. Imagine that!! The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law! These generations have produced some of the best risk-takers,problem solvers, and inventors ever. The past 50 to 85 years have seen an explosion of innovation and new ideas...We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned how to deal with it all. If YOU are one of those born between 1925-1970, CONGRATULATIONS! 

You might want to share this with others who have had the luck to grow up as kids before the lawyers and the government regulated so much of our lives for our own good. While you are at it, forward it to your kids, so they will know how brave and lucky their parents were. Kind of makes you want to run through the house with scissors, doesn't it ?