Kent Wayne

Musings

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by

DirtySciFiBuddha
in

In my opinion, people often mistake quitting with giving up.

Giving up is swearing off an endeavor due to an overwhelming amount of immediate stress.

Quitting is when I allow myself to knowingly make the wrong decision.  Those small, ego-borne missteps pile up, channeling me into situations where I have to loudly declare that I’m not giving up.

Sometimes it’s unavoidable, but why allow myself to get in those situations at all?  Why not engage in daily discipline, daily vigilance, and hold myself accountable long before Life does?

Musings, Volume 1, available on Amazon Kindle:  Musings, Volume 1

Comments

17 responses to “Musings”

  1. Matthew Avatar
    Matthew

    Great distinction. I struggle with the language of discomfort vs pain with my children (personal and professional). In order to grow, you HAVE to struggle. It’s life. But I’ve yet to find a way to say this well. Because, I don’t want people to suffer and be miserable – I think people should be able to quit if things are really not going well. But they need to know when it’s okay to push and feel uncomfortable a bit.

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    1. DirtySciFiBuddha Avatar
      DirtySciFiBuddha

      Absolutely. A certain level of discomfort facilitates growth, but too much facilitates damage. Basically, one has to be trained and raised to constantly assess whether they’re growing or getting damaged. A healthy amount of exercise versus a stupid amount is a good example of this. Conditioning also complicates things; once you’re conditioned, you can take more discomfort, and you have to be even more vigilant about assessing where you’re at because you can’t use the same standards as before.

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  2. cryptomathecian Avatar
    cryptomathecian

    Quitting is when I allow myself to knowingly make the wrong decision.

    In my dictionary that’s called making an intentional mistake.

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  3. scatteredbrained Avatar
    scatteredbrained

    Dispicine. Gotta practice it each and every day.

    Liked by 2 people

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    1. DirtySciFiBuddha Avatar
      DirtySciFiBuddha

      EVERY day. 🙂

      Liked by 1 person

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  4. Kalliope Avatar
    Kalliope

    Winners never quit, so quit while you’re ahead! Haha.

    Liked by 2 people

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    1. DirtySciFiBuddha Avatar
      DirtySciFiBuddha

      Hahaha! Well said!

      Liked by 2 people

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  5. Jerry VanSchaik Avatar
    Jerry VanSchaik

    I do find that if I practice small daily intentions I am able to avoid big problems. Since all problems start small, it is much easier to then live the life of your own making.

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    1. DirtySciFiBuddha Avatar
      DirtySciFiBuddha

      Sometimes big ones will ambush you out of nowhere, but yes, I agree—I believe (especially in the first world), the vast majority of problems start small. Even in dicier places, it’s not catastrophe after catastrophe. Smaller problems tend to magnify quicker, but the same principle still applies (in my opinion).

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  6. aussiescribbler Avatar
    aussiescribbler

    I don’t see a distinction between the terms. Is quitting smoking different from giving up smoking? Quitting isn’t necessarily a wrong decision. It depends on what you are quitting and why.

    Perhaps accepting defeat is the concept you are talking about, and there it is true that vigilance and good sense can go a long way to avoiding it. Know what you can achieve and approach it with the right strategy.

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    1. DirtySciFiBuddha Avatar
      DirtySciFiBuddha

      Those words are simply placeholders I use for a conceptual differentiation. What I’m really emphasizing is to pare back the nobility and chest-thumping that comes with the idea of pushing through a crisis, and to pay attention to each small decision so you can minimize the chances that such a crisis will ever come to pass.

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  7. Rita de Heer Avatar
    Rita de Heer

    Well, I see a difference. Quitting is actively deciding not to proceed with whatever endeavor before you’ve wasted your time giving it everything. Giving up, on the other hand, is when you’ve tried and tried to achieve whatever it is and not succeedecd. You stop trying. You give up.

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    1. DirtySciFiBuddha Avatar
      DirtySciFiBuddha

      Understandable. These are just my personal connotations I use to emphasize that it seems that many folks will ignore the smaller, day-to-day decisions and focus on the big “crises moments.” When in fact, they could have, in all likelihood, avoided that crisis moment if they had tended to the smaller problems, before they magnified.

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  8. jhward220 Avatar
    jhward220

    What is it called when you do the same thing over and over expecting to get a different result? I choose not to say I gave up but that maybe I quit because the endeavor had no other outcome.

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    1. DirtySciFiBuddha Avatar
      DirtySciFiBuddha

      I’d call that adjusting course. 🙂

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  9. Rita de Heer Avatar
    Rita de Heer

    When you’re stuck in a loop, @jhward220? You’ll quit when you realise what you’re doing and after a while think of a different approach.

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  10. legacy Avatar
    legacy

    Does it not depend what you are giving up? smoking unless it is in temper! Eating junk to safeguard life! Drinking so you have no oppertunity to save your family line when others take your life! Abstaining from extra curricular activities if it ruins others perception of self! Up is negative work as one and support your levels, if up is negative and ostructive! “to quote my best friend and husband!” shut up and dance!” very few get the knowledge most just get jackets and a death sentence! lol i say back to the sixties! body loyalty essential, drink and be merry by the jacketless, kill by the mayan calendar only the best win!

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