The Art Of / Quitting

One of the most repetitive things I was taught growing up– was how, as a Rueter, I was not a quitter.

When I said I was going to do something, I was to show up with integrity and see it through. Commitment, up until the very to the end, was instilled very young. If I joined a sports team, it was not an option to quit halfway through the season. Instead, I would work tirelessly until I perfected my position. Academics, sports, trying new things / it became very clear early on: quitting was a non-negotiable. Walking away is not permitted. And people will treat you differently when and if you decide to. 

We see underlying statements of this woven throughout our societal messaging as well. Up until the last few years, hustle and motivational culture dominated the charts: fuck your feeelings and how to be a badass and boss-babe’ing. We are taught to grit our teeth, put our emotions aside, and push through. And we want everyone to look at us as we do it. 

There are times in life that require all of these things. Where strength, diligence, perseverance and devotion are necessary in order to reach growth on the other side. We know this. And usually, our bodies know this. We can recognize when this form of resilience is needed in order to step into the light. I’m thankful I’ve been able to utilize my knack for devotion to bring me to this very moment. There were, and still are, times when quitting would make for a less difficult day-to-day. 

I’m interested in dissecting our culture’s obvious distaste and immediate knee-jerk reaction to quitting, and how this affects where it is actually warranted. We’ve cemented the idea of quitting as negative rather than a power. Because of that, we remain in toxic situations for longer than we should. We accept mundane paths in life, rather than fighting for a passion. We refuse to let ourselves see the many paths, many options. 

Someone asked me the other day, through all of the change and pain and success I’ve seen in the last three years… what is the biggest lesson I’ve learned?

I’ve learned that quitting- walking away- letting go - giving up- changing direction- is actually the most important skill I’ve lacked for most of my life. I don’t mean you quit when it's difficult. I mean you quit when it’s not working, when it’s toxic, when it’s detrimental to our own growth or even stability. Learning how to quit has changed my life. Quitting has set me free. 

Being raised as a ‘never quitter’ kept me small as an adult. It forced me in situations I should have never been in in the first place. I wasn’t able to trust myself enough to make those decisions when entering them. When I did decide to do something, I saw it as an end all be all, never an experiment or limited experience. I would dive head first into a job, a relationship, an idea– and place my entire heart and soul into it. There was no line of testing the waters. It was what I had entered, and I would be there forever now. When I would feel things not working, I would become malleable at the expense of myself in order to fit the shape it needed me to be. I was taught early on that instead of quitting, we just give it more time, more energy, more nurturing. The tides will change and you will control it, rather than wanting to quit. Do we see how muddled this gets?

The first time I ever quit something, I was in my early 20’s. 

A few years after graduating, I took a job for a well known firm in the New York area. Almost immediately, there was an undercurrent I could sense from my boss that felt unsafe and inappropriate. When it surfaced within the first two weeks of working for him, I mustered up the courage to put in my resignation face to face. I’ll never forget the calculated card he chose to play as I handed him the papers. Calmly and cold, he replied:  ‘You just took this job on and you’re going to quit already? Think of what everyone will say about you. Think of what your dad will say when you tell him you’ve quit”

Quitting will make her feel like a failure. Making her feel like a failure will overshadow any sense of intuition or self respect she has. He smelt it on me, as I’m sure he had on the many young women who had been in my position prior. I can make her feel as if she will never recover from doing such a thing. 

The shame and the guilt that surfaces with quitting (and, quite frankly- perceived failure) is one of suffocation. In that moment, he believed he could breed the shame around quitting in such a large powerful way, that I would immediately change my mind (and I’m sure, prevent more rumors around his poor reputation from spreading). I like to think that my older, wiser and more confident self was present in that moment. As I was swallowing knives to keep from crying, I calmly shook my head no, walked out, and never saw him or that job ever again. 

I quit and I had to deal with the consequences. I quit and had to return to my old job and ask for my position back. I quit and I placed my safety above shame. This was monumental for me. Looking back, it still is. I can’t believe that 22 year-old Sam held her ground there, as a first time quitter. 

There have even been many other experiences in my life where I’ve risked my own safety in order to ‘keep my no-quitter pride’. I would bend and bend and bend until I could somehow justify it in my mind; I would become the queen of not giving up. Not ever, not now. Just look at how selfless I am. In fact, I have no sense of self. Oh, the prizes we are given for disappearing entirely. 

Being terrified of quitting taught me to give away my own consent. It took away my ability to speak my truth and know when it felt unsafe, unaligned or misguided in my bodily knowing. I became codependent and unable to hold boundaries with a single person in my life. A walking doormat. 

When I knew that my teaching job was not in my mental health’s best interest, I stayed at the cost of my body and my mind. Because the salary wasn’t high enough, I took on several weekend jobs in order to stay afloat. I was on so many medications, bed ridden from stress migraines and chronic pain. I had gone to undergrad and worked my ass off for a dual major and a teaching certification. There is no going back now. How could I possibly change my life or do anything differently? I am Committed. This is life now. 

When I knew my relationship of 7 years was in a bad place, and myself, a worse one– I stayed longer because I had made a promise, a commitment, and couldn’t bear the shame of saying it was no longer healthy for me. The shame of walking away felt like it would rot me from the inside out. How could I ever be seen as a good, worthy girl.. Ever again? I didn’t believe there was anything worse than being a woman who had called off a marriage. I didn’t believe that was something you could recover from. You do not recover from the shame of quitting. 

The true hard thing was not staying to work it all out and sacrifice pieces of who I was, in order to keep it there. Learning to control the situation, to forgo pieces of my true self to make it work was easy. It was my normal. It never really occurred to me that you could actually survive changing your mind. That everyone else around you could, too. 

The hard thing was walking away. The hardest thing, the impossible thing, was quitting. 

Quitting, sometimes, is the only real way of choosing ourselves. 

“I don't like the way this is making my body feel” is a perfectly adequate reason to remove yourself from a person, place, experience. You might read that and think it’s too simple. And maybe that’s what the world would like us to believe. Because it keeps systems upheld and in place, working just the way they were meant to. Sure, the consequences of that choice will be extremely complex and take some time to unwind. But it is never impossible. Baby steps. 

How are we treating our friends, our loved ones, our family members, when they bring up the act of quitting? Our knee-jerk reaction is to always protect those we love from hardship, from suffering… from pain. Sometimes, if we aren’t careful, we will confuse bravery and knowing for weakness and indifference. Sometimes, we will want to coax them back into what appears ‘safe’ in order to keep the peace. Remember that protecting our loved ones means protecting their innermost knowing. The world has already done everything in its power to diminish that flame. It is our job, in love and in life, to trust our people;  to know when it’s time to quit. 

We should teach our children how to notice the art of quitting in those around them. To be an example of the ebb and flow. Notice when we are needing to loosen our grip, needing to let go. Notice when something is harmful, no longer serving us, noticing that maybe we’ve done all that we can. 

More importantly, we need to teach our children that letting other people down is not the end of the world. That letting ourselves down in order to protect others, is. That we are honoring our own capacity and realness, and in turn; doing the same for someone else. We need to give others permission to stop doing what is no longer working. That with the intention of quiet contemplation and introspection; the act of quitting can be the most empowering choice in that moment. It can lead us to freedom. To healing. It can change the systems of the world we live in. 

Quitting can take on a positive connotation. One where we release the misconceived notion of being a failure. Quitting teaches us many things if we are willing to sit beside it in that moment and really listen. 

It’s saying, it’s okay to change course, it’s okay to chart a new one. Life is about experimentation and taste testing. Nothing is permanent. It means we will make mistakes, that we are permanent students. It means I will love you regardless of what those mistakes are. It means, I love you for trying in the first place. And now I will cheer you on as you search for the new. 

Let’s congratulate others who are willing to quit.

And love ourselves a little more when we do, too. 

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