Why Are We So Willing to Break Ourselves Before We Quit?
Put short, the definition of quitting implies permanency. No going back.
Done.
We are funny creatures and don’t particularly like that concept.
We minimize tabs instead of closing them- or at least I know I do- just in case we need them again. We are sentimental, nostalgic, and emotional. Personally, I have been called heartless for shredding and recycling birthday cards. Earlier this year, I packed my entire life (minus a rather important living being) into two suitcases and flew them across the world for good.
I am not one to let myself get easily attached to physical objects. However, it’s harder when it’s not something you can hold in your hand, and instead, is burrowed away and nestled into your existence.
Years ago, I was faced with a decision on pursuing a PhD in Physics or moving out into the ’real world’. Academia is a notoriously difficult career path; more than a little cutthroat. Here was my pitch at the time:
- Broaden human knowledge in your chosen field.
- Keep learning, forever.
- Make an impact on the world.
- Travel internationally to connect with others.
Oh, and I shouldn’t forget: you can call yourself ‘Doctor’.
Don’t get me wrong, no one ever tells you it’s easy. They are pretty upfront about the brutal hours, lack of social life, and the need to be able to handle failed experiments and a lack of results (lesson for life, eh?).
When I signed away my mental and physical health that fateful day (it was 25 °C on a Tuesday), I did so wearing the most fashionable rose-tinted glasses I could find. I put on my invisible cape, squared my shoulders and said with the most convincing voice I could:
“I will be one of the ones who will make it through, I will change the world.”
In case you haven’t guessed already, I didn’t.
I’ve got to give myself a little credit for getting halfway. Especially seeing as by the end I was commuting 2 hours per day by train, dropped 8kg due to stress, and could barely function for anxiety attacks. My experiments didn’t work, the results wouldn’t come, and I struggled to become the industry expert I needed to be. I sat in a vicious cycle of meetings: pitch new ideas, rip them apart, start all over again.
I affectionately called it ‘paying my dues’.
I knew deep down this wasn’t how it should be.
This begs the question, why was I so afraid to quit?
Before I was even old enough to stumble across the carpet, like the large-headed baby I was, my mother wrote in my baby book:
She is learning everything very fast. She is going to be a scientist or a professor.
Science has always come relatively easy for me, with no small credit to my family. They supported me with home experiments, unwavering encouragement, and a personal drive for my success that eclipsed my own.
Signing that contract seemed like the next logical step in the journey to fulfil everything they told me I could achieve- and I wholeheartedly believed them.
Years later, as I lay sobbing on my living room floor with barely the energy to stand, I uttered those pivoting words:
“I can’t let them down.”
Them. My first thought was to others opinion. What would they think? Would they whisper behind my back, casting me as a failure? Would they tarnish me as that young girl who cried from exhaustion in a meeting because she couldn’t understand? Would they always remember me as the girl who embarrassed herself by spouting non-results at an international conference?
There was more of the above, and plenty of it.
I had dreamed of receiving my doctorate since I was 5. It’s hard to accept that sometimes, things just don’t work.
I didn’t tell anyone I was leaving until I was out the door. My family knew months after the fact. There is still the occasional friend who catches me off guard and still doesn’t know.
I felt ashamed. Unintelligent. A complete failure.
Now I choose to own this chapter as a part of me. I have learned to trust my gut, as it rears its ugly head in the form of nausea, irritability, oversleeping, and weight loss.
Despite leaving with no career path or plan, I am finding my way. Through business development, marketing, operations, and management I am discovering what I’m truly made of.
The words failure, unintelligent, and weak have been replaced with adaptable, creative, and strong-willed. I am taking more calculated chances, and discovering aspects of my personality that have lain dormant for years.
If I find the right room, I know I will thrive. If you’d asked me 3 years ago I wouldn’t have laughed, but cried at such as ludicrous thought.
Dreams are funny things. We plaster them on our childhood walls and- unlike the poorly-aged boy band posters- forget to take them down to be replaced when we no longer have a passion for them.
I was (and still am) bombarded with mantras of ‘don’t quit’, motivational quotes, success stories and tales of overcoming. It has taken years for me to accept that it is okay to step away from something that once meant the world to me, to close a door. It doesn’t make you any less.
Just remember, you are never starting from the very beginning. What you bring forward from every experience is deeper understanding, and skills that resumes can’t articulate.
You’re growing.
This isn’t a story I can wrap up in a nice bow and call complete. I’ve accepted that I wasn’t able to cross that finish line. It that doesn’t stop me feeling like I have been sucker-punched I feel when I come across another LinkedIn post celebrating success in passing a thesis defence. I have a great amount of respect for those who make it in fulfilling those dreams of changing the face of science.
One day, I might be ‘good enough’. I’m still in the process of figuring out what that looks like.
