Letting Go Ain’t Easy

When a coachee of mine recently decided to give up on a project, he felt like a failure. For our next session, I asked him to collect quotes by famous people who had experienced failure before they ultimately succeeded.

I looked for quotes myself. Among the first ones I came across was the following:

“Failure at some point in your life is inevitable, but giving up is unforgivable.”

It really made me think. I couldn’t get myself to agree with it entirely. If someone wanted to give up as soon as they encountered the smallest obstacle, sure, I would consider telling them that giving up was not an option. But “unforgivable”?

Many of us were taught to never give up. That’s well-intentioned advice. If people gave up left and right, things would not get invented, society would not evolve, we would all be worse off. If we just hold on long enough, until the tide turns, we develop resilience, and perseverance pays off. That’s the idea. It’s not a bad one.

And so, giving up primarily has negative connotations: it implies that we lack determination and tenacity, that we drop a goal without making a true effort, that we are not good enough, that we are weak.

But that is not true.

There are, in fact, times when giving up is exactly the right thing to do and it’s the opposite of being weak. It means that we are mature enough to know when to cut our losses and move on. It means that we possess the courage to change course and protect ourselves — and possibly others.

The painful reality is that sometimes dreams just don’t come true. No matter how much you wish for them or how hard you work for them. Such is life.

We all face countless situations over the course of time which demand of us to choose between giving something one more try or giving it up. Sometimes, continuing to strive is the smart choice. Sometimes, it’s not.

Acceptance is hard. What may make it just a tad easier is to think of giving up as letting go, releasing something that can no longer be held on to, after we did everything we could to try and make it work.

Remember the quote from the beginning? It’s from Joe Biden. It dates back many years. Looking at the numerous personal tragedies and professional setbacks he has overcome, I can see how “giving up is unforgivable” is not a hackneyed phrase. To Joe Biden, it’s what has kept him alive.

That’s what makes his — and his surroundings’ — unwillingness or inability to let go at this precise moment especially tragic. The decision to stay on for months of gruelling campaigning (for an idea of what it’s like on the trail, watch the last season of The West Wing) is not only an act of self-delusion and self-harm, but, according to the Fourth Estate, one of national endangerment as well: the Editorial Boards of several leading newspapers, including The New York Times and the Chicago Tribune, have made remarkable use of their watchdog role and called for Joe Biden to step aside as Presidential Candidate.

The pain of loss can feel overwhelming. Grieving means we have to confront feelings of sadness and emptiness, which is why there is often such great resistance to letting go. If we are trapped in rigid thinking, we cannot see that by giving something up, we might be gaining something else. There is no shame in giving up. On the contrary, there is wisdom, bravery, and dignity in realizing the necessity of sacrificing for the sake of a greater good that which we believe to be right.

Or as Joseph Campbell put it:

“We must be willing to let go of the life we’ve planned, so as to have the life that is waiting for us.”

30 June 2024

Original Photograph of Joe Biden: Samir Hussein/WireImage

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