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Anna Colibri | Writer & Digital Marketer

I Feel Like Quitting

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I Quit mixed media illustration by Alison Wong

I feel like quitting. I hate to say this for a few reasons.

One of them is that it doesn’t feel good to feel like quitting, unless you have one of those Ah-ha! moments in which you realize quitting is the best thing you could do and it changes your whole life and they make a movie about you. Or better yet, you write a memoir about it and then it gets made into a movie and, if you live even relatively frugally, you barely have to work anymore. In that type of situation, feeling like quitting is just one more step in the right direction.

Another reason it’s hard to admit that I want to quit is that I read posts and inspirational quotes all that time stating that successful business owners are delusionally optimistic, passionate about what they do, and similar. Delusional optimism and passion sound more appropriate for a small business owner like myself than “desire to quit,” right?

Wanting to quit, especially if you are American, is also embarrassing. We are the can-do culture. Quitting is for communists.

The reality, though, is that I do feel like quitting. And all delusional optimism aside, I am not alone. According to various sources on the internet, a good 70% of Americans dislike their jobs. I was on the phone with a friend just the other day and I hadn’t even told her I was writing this post when she told me, almost out of nowhere, that she felt like quitting. It was kind of an exciting moment.

Self help books have been written for the temporarily pessimistic, unpassionate entrepreneur. I just read one by Seth Godin called The Dip. Seth admits, first thing, that he feels like quitting at least once per day. The idea is that entrepreneurs have dips and periods during which we want to quit, but we can turn these dips into triumphant blog posts later (if not memoirs and movies). Right about now, this is the closest thing to that triumphant blog post you’re going to get from me. So keep reading.

The only good thing about admitting that I feel like quitting is that it’s true. The only thing that might be truer is that the feeling is most likely temporary. But who wants to admit that? So while it’s here it’s real and it does feel at least a little good to mentally lay effort aside, sigh, and say —

I’m tired of feeling obligated to be passionate and delusionally optimistic and I want to quit.

The truest truth is that quitting is not currently a realistic option — at least not for me. Instead, I’ll need to find ways to rekindle my delusional optimism and passion. Or at least make peace with the fact that I don’t feel delusionally optimistic and passionate.

But let’s just pretend for a minute that I did quit. What would it look like? I would definitely start with email, and quit answering it. Then I would quit texting, paying my rent, listening to voicemail, checking my Yelp reviews, brushing my teeth, and bathing. No more dishes for me!

In fact, while I was quitting, I’d quit eating. Why not? I’ve already quit drinking. I could even quit talking, but nobody who knows me believes that’s going to happen.

So you see. I may feel like quitting, but what else is there to do?

To Define is to Limit

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“Valentine,” Mixed Media Illustration by Alison Wong

It was Oscar Wilde who said that “To define is to limit,” and we all know it’s true.

In honor of Valentine’s Day, I will not try to define love — although I have tried before. Instead, I’ll speak of its importance — and it’s limitlessness.

I think it’s a testimony to love, not that love needs my testimony, that despite all the heartbreak I have experienced in this life, I remain able to say with a true and open heart that nothing is more important than love.

Nothing in this world is more important than love. Secretly knowing the importance of love, but often feeling unworthy or incapable of love, we circle around it, instead of planting our feet and radiating it. The truth that somehow escapes us is that love is limitless — it is, happily, an unlimited and renewable resource to us all.

Some people try to tell me that hate, too, is unlimited and renewable, but I think hate is a form of love — a disappointed and fearful misunderstanding about the limitlessness and accessibility of love.

If you’re like me, you have no special someone to love this Valentine’s Day. If you are like me, the people you love most are with their father this Valentine’s Day and so you will spend it either alone or maybe with a friend, not exactly ignoring, but not really celebrating it, either.

I do not want to belittle Valentine’s Day, especially because it might sound like sour grapes, but it is true that Valentine’s Day is a commercial holiday, promoted by commercial forces to further the interests of capitalism. Valentine’s Day defines love in a specific way, and thus limits it. These limits, or boundaries, put some of us on the right side of love, and some of on the wrong side, which leads to sorrow and disappointment. Oscar Wilde said:

It takes a great deal of courage to see the world in all its tainted glory, and still to love it.

Between the capitalism and our longing for love, we, if we are coupled, expect great things from Valentine’s Day, or if we are single, we may feel underlying regret that we are no one’s Valentine. My only solution is to love as wholly as I can.

So, dear, if you are a lonely heart this Valentine’s Day, know that I stand for you. And, if you are a disappointed Valentine, heed this final bit of Wilde wisdom:

Never love anyone who treats you like you’re ordinary.

Get Quiet and Feel Great in Eight Simple Steps

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Red and Gold No. 1 by Alison Wong

The Buddha was big on lists and I’m big on the Buddha, and lists are certainly part of why I like practicing meditation as much as I do. The Buddha’s lists spark a lot of confidence. Lists like the Eightfold Path make enlightenment seem doable. You just list it out, attack one thing at a time, and then cross it off. Boom! You’re enlightened.

There was a time when that was exactly my approach. You can guess that it wasn’t quite as easy as I hoped it would be. I’m not going to blame the Buddha for my aggressive attitude towards practice. And I can’t even blame him for the negative way he phrases his message.

To cease suffering is basically a double negative, “do not” sort of message that says the result will be that you will stop suffering. Eight whole steps and all you get is to stop suffering? With fewer than 600 million participants (which is about 7% of the world’s population), Buddhism, lists aside, actually hasn’t captured much market share with the stop suffering message.

I think the Buddha would have had even more takers if he had phrased things a little more positively, not been afraid of a little spin. . .It sounds so modern, too: Get Quiet and Feel Great in Eight Simple Steps. Too bad I wasn’t around to help. Le sigh.

Actually, I get why he did it. Like I said, in my experience practice isn’t easy. If you commit to practicing meditation, it’s nice to understand that practice requires something of you.

Before we go further, here’s a refresher, adapted from Buddhism for Dummies, that sums up the requirements of the Eightfold Path:

The Eightfold Path

The Eightfold Path of Buddhism, also called the Middle Way, is a way to stay focused, balanced, calm, and energized (that’s one of the reasons I like it). Please read these brief descriptions of each part of the path:

  • Right understanding. Understanding that the Four Noble Truths are sacred and true.
  • Right thought. Committing in thought, word, and deed to practice meditation.
  • Right speech. Avoiding slander, gossip, lying, and all forms of untrue and abusive speech.
  • Right conduct. Refraining from violence (ahimsa) along with any form of stealing or sexual impropriety.
  • Right work. Refraining from employing yourself with work that forces you to violate yourself or others.
  • Right mental attitude or effort: Cultivating positive rather than negative thoughts, emotional balance, as well as minimizing emotions such as anger and jealousy.
  • Right mindfulness. Having a clear sense of one’s mental state, bodily health, and feelings.
  • Right concentration. Using meditation to reach the highest level of enlightenment.

I rephrased the components of the eightfold path to sound positive when I could, as an experiment. The truth is, though, that life is hard — and I think that the Buddha wanted to make sure he made that point without apologies. So why would you want to make things harder for yourself by limiting your behavior?

Why Does Right Conduct Matter?

The reason is that — like practicing anything you want to get good at — in order to live your best life you have to refrain from certain things and actively pursue others. When it’s an instrument, you spend time practicing, and the time you spend practicing limits your time to do other activities.

It’s relatively easy to be objective about how well an instrument is being played. Most of us can hear a violin squeak or sense that something is “off” when the instruments involved are not in time or tune with each other.

Right conduct matters because it boosts confidence, reduces anxiety, and increases your capacity for joy. I look at it as a kind of symphony of effects through body, mind, and soul. In fact, think of your soul as a tuning fork, and your actions as the notes you are playing. Right conduct enhances harmony and reduces conflicts of all kinds.

Although “well-behaved” is kind of a prissy word, I think it communicates a little of the resistance most of feel when we think of having to follow rules. Nevertheless, good behavior makes me feel better about myself and more generous towards others. It’s relaxing and serenity-inducing to know that I’ve done what I was obligated to do along with acts of love and creativity, haven’t done anything I regret, treated people fairly and honestly, and remained in integrity with my values.

In yoga, there is a term called tapas, sometimes translated as “burning zeal for practice.” Tapas are commitments, like maintaining silence, fasting, or repeating mantras. These acts are meant to increase the heat of your practice — in other words, to create passion. They are also a — hopefully gentle — crucible for burning away old mistakes and misdeeds.

When I was younger, good behavior felt like more of a sacrifice, and it was harder to maintain. I resisted good behavior because it made me feel unfree. After 20 years of practice, tapas is starting to make sense to me because I can feel myself reaping some of the rewards (maybe not of enlightenment, per se, but certainly less stress and more joy) of all the time I have put into it.

The beauty of practice is that if you are consistent over long periods of time, even if you aren’t perfectly consistent, it is a cumulative investment in yourself. Over time, just like practicing an instrument or anything else, it becomes easier and more joyful to do. And then it doesn’t feel like you made a sacrifice because you got the gift of playing beautiful music.