When is it Okay to Give Up?

We, as a society teach the next generation that it’s never okay to give up. If you’ve started something you must finish it. Whether it be a new sport, a project, or just a meal, throwing in the proverbial towel isn’t generally seen as acceptable behavior.

But there are circumstances where this idea isn’t executed the way it should be.Take marriage for an example. The divorce rate in America is unbelievable. What used to be one of those things you must finish, it's now treated like an old piece of clothing. If it’s become stained, or you’ve outgrown it, what's the sense in making repairs when you can just go to the store and buy a new one?

How can you tell if what you're facing is something you should push through or walk away from? When is it okay to throw up our hands and say “That's it, I can’t do this anymore!”?

I’ve been turning this issue over and over in my mind lately. This conundrum has been plaguing me for months now.

I started writing a novel about three years ago. “That Summer” was my baby, the idea being born from my love of country music. I was excited about my characters, and I thought that this could be the book I did something with.

But unfortunately, what started out as a young adult romance ended up morphing into a real life horror.

Like most of us I have a pretty busy life. With two kids, a husband, a household to take care of, two dogs, and a full time job, I don’t get a lot of time to write. There was a period where I had decided to take a break and “That Summer” lay dormant in the bowels of my old desk drawer. Sure I’d think about it on occasion, continually berating myself for not making the time to work on it, but nonetheless not picking up the pen.

About a year ago I decided it was time to take my writing more seriously and jumped right back into bringing my book to life.

At first I was ecstatic.

Then I reread what I’d already written.

Let’s just say most of it was unsalvageable garbage. What to do when your writing sucks? Revise, revise, revise. Of course I could make it awesome, with a little time and patience it would be the book I was dreaming about.

Not.

No matter how hard I tried, the wonderful story in my head was not translating onto paper quite the way I’d hoped. I started to think there was something wrong with me. Maybe I just needed a new approach. I don’t usually create a detailed outline so I decided to try that for a change. I just kept writing, no editing involved, letting the ideas flow.

I soon realized though that my problem was not my approach, it was the story. Like a new shiny toy, I’d outgrown it. Since the time I had put it down, my perception of it had changed. Even though I had come to this conclusion I still couldn’t bring myself to give up. How could I forget a book I had spent the better part of three years working on?

I couldn’t.

That is until I recently read another writer's account of the same struggle I was facing. Maria Marnane’s blog post, “When to pull the plug on your book” inspired me to do just that. Why waste my time on something that no longer made me feel passionate about writing? It just didn’t make sense.

I think that this lesson can translate into other areas of our lives. Stuck in a job you hate? Don’t want to continue on that new diet that makes you despise the world around you?

Then don’t.

Why do things if they make us miserable? Our journeys are too short to continuously hold the mentality that giving up=failure. It doesn’t always have to be that way.