The consummate quitter

Chapter 178

"How am I to know what I can achieve if I quit?" ~ Jason Bishop

In my youth, I was the consummate quitter. At the first sign of difficulty, I was done. I quit the model car I was building, I quit piano lessons, I quit football, I quit homework, I quit collecting stamps, I quit work, I quit band, I quit any and everything that took any effort whatsoever. I was so lazy. I achieved little to nothing.

I was in my last half of my senior year in high school before I ever recall applying myself to something full on. “Full on” being relative to my past, because I am pretty sure I took short cuts even during my senior year. I know I took short cuts for decades after high school at every point I could. After so many years of practicing short cuts, I would argue that they too are a form of quitting - in the sense that I did not do all the heavy mental lifting myself.

Thankfully tenacity and persistence eventually took over my life, or I would likely still be quitting everything. As I sit here thinking about these 58 years of my life, it is difficult to see precisely when why and how tenacity and persistence came to be the cornerstone of my life, work and processes.

Brenda thinks is was just motivation to prove everyone wrong in their assumptions about me (but they HAD been watching me quit for 20 years), and she may be right. I think it likely has more to do with results. When I could no longer depend on anyone but me for the results in life and work, then the change began. And having a job that was before the public (for their daily judgement) added gas to that fire.

I have always greatly admired craftsmanship and excellence in workmanship. At some point it became clear that if I was ever going to produce something important, significant or of excellence, I was going to have to dig in deep. Somewhere along the line it became a habit. Now it is my daily work life.