# The joys of quitting...



## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Stage one: sudden enthusiasm for an activity. Take this up and it will change your life.

Stage two: discover a course - find an offer - enrol, and gloat.

Stage three: egad - it's much harder than you thought. Drop out - give it up - write off the expense.

Stage four: relief
or 
Stage four: regret.

Has this happened to you. It has to me, with philosophy, photography, playing the concertina, morris dancing, teaching myself German, yoga, pilates, jiving, diving, and living in a commune. 

 My sister once told me - 'The trouble with you, is that you're too enthusiastic.'

Would love to hear other people's stories!


----------



## Manxfeeder (Oct 19, 2010)

I have a teach yourself Greek book that looked very interesting at the cash register. By the time I got it home, the sheen had worn off. I console myself in that, after all that effort, I would have forgotten all that anyway.


----------



## Guest (Jul 29, 2014)

Learning a new language can be daunting. I took German in school, and then lived in Germany/Switzerland for a couple of years. That makes it easier. Teaching oneself - that takes real perseverance. I needed the constant feedback to learn. Still, though, I periodically get the desire to learn something like Latin. It goes away about as quickly.

For me, though, it would have to be learning to play the guitar. Thought I could teach myself. To paraphrase Bono of U2, all I got is a yellowish guitar, 4-5 random chords, and the truth. That's as far as I ever got.


----------



## Lukecash12 (Sep 21, 2009)

I never really take up an interest with anything less than 100%. It's not like I'm more dedicated, more like it's how I'm hard wired to do it. When I take up something it doesn't really feel like a chore, the learning process itself is intoxicating and I have had to learn to limit myself. It actually inflames my encephalitus, and can give me a panic attack or a seizure at worst, so I have to be careful as I can lose track of time and even read something for more than ten hours (and the longer I read, with my condition it's like the oven in my head is getting hotter and hotter). So for me it's more like an on-and-off switch.


----------



## science (Oct 14, 2010)

I have no quitting stories! I always finish what I


----------



## amfortas (Jun 15, 2011)

Fortunately, I never get excited about anything, and save myself all that trouble.


----------



## Jos (Oct 14, 2013)

Bought a classic trialmotorcycle to restore and get back into bikes (used to be a fanatic motorcyclist, years ago, before children, common sense and fear of death kicked in) it is now sitting in my backyard taken over by poison ivy for four! years. A nice touch of poor white trash, my wife calls it....the thing will have to go, I'm definitely through with motorbikes.

Cheers,
Jos


----------



## clara s (Jan 6, 2014)

Manxfeeder said:


> I have a teach yourself Greek book that looked very interesting at the cash register. By the time I got it home, the sheen had worn off. I console myself in that, after all that effort, I would have forgotten all that anyway.


just a half-hour sheen for a language? (from the bookstore to home)

Greek must be very boring hahaha


----------



## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

The only thing I ever quit was golf because being in the hot sun for hours a day caused me to have a basal cell carcinoma. So I stopped golf cold turkey, even though I loved the game.

No joy involved. Quitting through necessity.


----------



## clara s (Jan 6, 2014)

I get easily bored

but when I quit, I never regret


so i came through volley ball, athletics (long jump and sprint), teach myself chinese (with latin characters),
gymnastics, piano, harmonica, writing, painting, knitting, modern dancing etc etc etc

Recently I am interested in theater acting
In my next performance, you will all be invited (If i do not get bored soon)


----------



## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

hpowders said:


> The only thing I ever quit was golf because being in the hot sun for hours a day caused me to have a basal cell carcinoma. So I stopped golf cold turkey, even though I loved the game.
> 
> No joy involved. Quitting through necessity.


Can't 'like' that; so 'sympathise' instead. And all credit to you for your sensible attitude & glad to have you with us. :tiphat:


----------



## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

I would say it is fortunate that I've never had an experience remotely like your "Stage one":
_"Stage one: sudden enthusiasm for an activity. Take this up and it will change your life."_ That of course excludes any of the other stages from being experienced. Meant in humor or not, I find the "...and it will change your life." part really funny 

I do have an aggravating tic. If I do take up any task, from the simplest household repair to something a bit more technically and creatively challenging, that I am not at all happy unless I can do it pretty damned well -- or not at all -- an ego vanity to be sure, but this want and need to 'do it well or not at all' holds for that slight chore and other pursuits, and without anyone knowing I have done anything at all, no 'critics' commenting on what I have done -- other than myself as critic, all regardless of how small or trivial the task may be,

Having the measure of just how far that is to get to the level of doing something even _fairly well_, with early music lessons in classical music and piano I suppose being the 'informing / formative' model, I have 'resisted' picking up: more language(s); welding, casting and manipulating metals; photography; a second instrument, even.

I am far less than frequently 'a Sunday painter,' for example, while that too, falls far short of being anywhere near 'good at.'

Picking up any of those additional pursuits would just not allow enough time to get to a level which would satisfy me (the satisfaction at least outweighing the dissatisfaction with ability and result), without that taking time away from maintaining at the least that which I already do fairly well.


----------



## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

Ingélou said:


> Can't 'like' that; so 'sympathise' instead. And all credit to you for your sensible attitude & glad to have you with us. :tiphat:


Thanks, but basal cell carcinoma is the most benign of the three possible skin cancers. I was in no danger. But I am a health nut and am fanatical about taking care of my body take care of my body, so giving up golf, under the circumstances, was a no-brainer for me. That was quite a while ago by the way.

But, _please _ everybody, hold off on the shovel and the dirt!!! :lol::lol:


----------



## EricABQ (Jul 10, 2012)

I tried to quit drinking once, and it brought me no joy, so I quit trying to quit.


----------



## PetrB (Feb 28, 2012)

clara s said:


> I get easily bored


The reason for that is the things you found / find boring _have not completely seized your imagination and interest_.

If and or when that happens, i.e. a true and complete enthusiasm _(N.B. this can not be 'manufactured,' or induced, but is something innate)_, then boredom is rarely -- if ever -- involved.


----------



## mirepoix (Feb 1, 2014)

^^^^ something you love can become part of your life. And it follows that in time it then becomes part of who you are. At that stage, quitting isn't a question that's ever raised.


----------



## mirepoix (Feb 1, 2014)

I remember something that I quit. When I was 14(?) years old I made it to the final of the 400m race in the Scottish youth championship. I finished fifth out of six runners. Well, I really finished last because the sixth guy pulled up half way through the race. I quit because training took up so much time which was at a time when photography, playing the drums, girls, and boxing were all becoming increasingly important. I didn't even lie to myself that I was just taking a break and would start training again in the winter. I just quit it completely. Anyway, it turned out for the best because the 400 is a sprint and I wasn't very tall and would never have been tall enough for that distance.


----------



## clara s (Jan 6, 2014)

PetrB said:


> The reason for that is the things you found / find boring _have not completely seized your imagination and interest_.
> 
> If and or when that happens, i.e. a true and complete enthusiasm _(N.B. this can not be 'manufactured,' or induced, but is something innate)_, then boredom is rarely -- if ever -- involved.


As a principle you are perfectly right

But...

I belong to this group of people that are continuously restless,
desiring to try new things and consequently have new feelings

i suppose that boredom is coming with the repeat and the routine,
and has nothing to do _with not completely seizing my imagination_

But again, due to the the fact that I always hear wise people's suggestions,
I can do nothing but wait for the true enthusiasm (I like very much the word innate)


----------



## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

I've given up the activities of consuming bacon and smoking, quite a while back. Cold turkey on both. The bacon was tougher because whenever I go traveling, the hotel breakfast buffets usually have bacon on display. Makes it tough to dish out the oatmeal (porridge to you gringos) after breathing in that intoxicating eau de bacon.


----------



## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

clara s said:


> As a principle you are perfectly right
> 
> But...
> 
> ...


I believe this to be a curse of the very bright; the mundane that average people settle for, bores the intellectually gifted to tears.

Not that I consider myself to be part of any elite group, but when I was a teenager, I was always apart from average kids. I was already deeply into classical music, opera, Miles Davis; things that other kids didn't know or care anything about.

I grew up quitting normal adolescence.


----------



## Cheyenne (Aug 6, 2012)

I try to pick things I quit with up again _sometime_. After heaven knows how long I still can't even play solid single notes on my Harmonica, but at least I practice irregularly -- so maybe I'll get there by the time I hit 25! Disciplining has, by now, made me significantly better at focusing than I was when I joined this place. Mr. John Milton's eloquent writings in favor of it are what I have to thank for that.


----------



## clara s (Jan 6, 2014)

hpowders said:


> I believe this to be a curse of the very bright; the mundane that average people settle for, bores the intellectually gifted to tears.
> 
> Not that I consider myself to be part of any elite group, but when I was a teenager, I was always apart from average kids. I was already deeply into classical music, opera, Miles Davis; things that other kids didn't know or care anything about.
> 
> I grew up quitting normal adolescence.


do you think that I might have a hope?

honestly I would love to clarify, that I feel bored for various activities 
that they are a kind of hobby to me

when i am dealing with something professionally,

I will not be rest, until I am totally satisfied with the result


----------



## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

clara s said:


> do you think that I might have a hope?
> 
> honestly I would love to clarify, that I feel bored for various activities
> that they are a kind of hobby to me
> ...


Ahhh....a perfectionist on top of it! No! There now is definitely no hope!!

Welcome to the club!!! Ha! Ha! Ha!


----------



## shangoyal (Sep 22, 2013)

Quit smoking - that feels good.

Also quit trying to play guitar - although I was good enough to amuse myself, I wasn't getting better and almost everybody thought I was just kidding myself. I will pick it up again some day, I am sure of that.

Had quit playing chess around 5 years ago - was expecting too much of myself and always tried to play strategic, positional games. Now, I am probably less smart than I was 5 years ago, but a better player, mainly because I take each game as just that - a game.

It's interesting how a lot of your interests get recycled. The world is round.


----------



## Varick (Apr 30, 2014)

clara s said:


> do you think that I might have a hope?





hpowders said:


> Ahhh....a perfectionist on top of it! No! There now is definitely no hope!!


Reminds me of a funny story I once heard from a friend of mine. He was ordering a camera part from a store and was leaving for a trip in a few days. When the shop owner told him the part would be in the following week, my friend asked, _"Is there any hope it will be in sooner like in a few days?" _ The shop owner said, _"There is always hope, there is just no chance."
_

V


----------



## Guest (Aug 1, 2014)

In general with me, I either develop an over-the-top obsession with a thing I start and follow it intensely for a period of time until I have gone as far with it as either is possible, or is as far as I can achieve, and then the interest wains a bit. Or I go pick up everything I need to begin my new interest, and that interest fizzles out after I have spent a significant amount of money but before I achieve any measurable progress in my endeavor.

Reading is one are where I usually can get my objective. I recently downloaded a series of lectures on 10 of the truly great classics of literature from antiquity through the Middle Ages - Oedipus Rex, the Book of Job, the Illiad, the Oddyssey, Virgil's Aeneid, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, Canterbury Tales, the story of David in the Old Testament, Dante's Inferno, Saint Augustine's Confessions. After listening to the lectures, I have now committed to reading the works (some I have already read, but will read again with the new insights provided from the lectures). Right now I am a third of the way through Sophocles' three Theban play (I decided to read all three, not just Oedipus Rex, and in the order they were written, so I have read Antigone).


----------



## Blake (Nov 6, 2013)

shangoyal said:


> Quit smoking - that feels good.


Same here. Such a satisfying quit.


----------



## hpowders (Dec 23, 2013)

I quit smoking cold turkey when I was around 23. Never picked up a butt since.
What's that? Like six months ago? Ha! Ha! Ha!


----------



## Figleaf (Jun 10, 2014)

Yes, learning ancient languages is boring. They are always taught, in books at least, in a very dry Victorian manner, and who can get excited about learning declensions and conjugations till the cows come home? I imagine it's better in a classroom setting if you have a sympathetic teacher who isn't too much of a bore. And if you can get over the death by tedium that is the process of learning all that grammar, the literature is definitely worth it!
Not sure I'd bother with Latin or Greek if I had my time again though.


----------



## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

Figleaf said:


> Yes, learning ancient languages is boring. They are always taught, in books at least, in a very dry Victorian manner, and who can get excited about learning declensions and conjugations till the cows come home? I imagine it's better in a classroom setting if you have a sympathetic teacher who isn't too much of a bore. And if you can get over the death by tedium that is the process of learning all that grammar, the literature is definitely worth it!
> Not sure I'd bother with Latin or Greek if I had my time again though.



NumberSingularPlural_nominative_bōsbovēs_genitive_bovisboum_dative_bovībōbus
būbus_accusative_bovembovēs_ablative_bovebōbus
būbus_vocative_bōsbovēs

Ah - I enjoy everything about languages, including learning declensions & conjugations, but I do see your point of view, and I'm enchanted by the idea of the cows coming home at the end! 
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


----------



## Cheyenne (Aug 6, 2012)

Figleaf said:


> Yes, learning ancient languages is boring. They are always taught, in books at least, in a very dry Victorian manner, and who can get excited about learning declensions and conjugations till the cows come home? I imagine it's better in a classroom setting if you have a sympathetic teacher who isn't too much of a bore. And if you can get over the death by tedium that is the process of learning all that grammar, the literature is definitely worth it!
> Not sure I'd bother with Latin or Greek if I had my time again though.


I try and use song when I'm learning a language. Just find your favorite Lieder and read along with the wonderful poems! Debussy's Mélodies have helped considerably with my French; Schubert's Goethe-Lieder (Goethe in general!) with my German.

I originally learned English from cartoons and bad music -- including their theme songs.


----------



## Figleaf (Jun 10, 2014)

Cheyenne said:


> I try and use song when I'm learning a language. Just find your favorite Lieder and read along with the wonderful poems! Debussy's Mélodies have helped considerably with my French; Schubert's Goethe-Lieder (Goethe in general!) with my German.
> 
> I originally learned English from cartoons and bad music -- including their theme songs.


Lieder were very helpful with my A level German- a painless way of practising, very useful as I'd just transferred from a sink school to a very academic one where German was considered the most prestigious subject, so I had a lot of catching up to do! Now I'm learning French for a writing project I'm doing and music is an essential part of the learning process for me. Good to know a similar technique was so successful for you!


----------



## SiegendesLicht (Mar 4, 2012)

Ingélou said:


> Has this happened to you. It has to me, with philosophy, photography, playing the concertina, morris dancing, *teaching myself German*, yoga, pilates, jiving, diving, and living in a commune.


It's a pity you never went through with that one. It did change my life, that's for sure.

As to your question, I tried learning to play the guitar a while ago. I even dreamed of playing in a band some day. Well, the most useful lesson I got out of that learning was that, much as I love music, I should better be content with listening to it, as I seem to have no musical abilities of my own whatsoever. But generally I have more things that I _intend_ to do some day and never get around to doing so far: learning Swedish, getting a driving license, reading Schopenhauer, Nietzsche and a bunch of other books, learning to ride a horse etc.


----------



## Ingélou (Feb 10, 2013)

SiegendesLicht said:


> It's a pity you never went through with that one.


I agree! If I'd been enrolled on a course, or gone against my headmistress's silly advice & dropped biology to learn German at school, it would have been different. I just couldn't keep my own nose to the grindstone. 

But I think no knowledge is wasted in this world. I gave up the violin for forty-five years, but when I came back to it, I was able to draw very readily on the tuition I'd had at school. And as you say, sometimes a person learns from quitting that a subject isn't for them, and it's worth prioritising and spending one's time where it *does* count.


----------



## Varick (Apr 30, 2014)

Figleaf said:


> Yes, learning ancient languages is boring. They are always taught, in books at least, in a very dry Victorian manner, and who can get excited about learning declensions and conjugations till the cows come home? I imagine it's better in a classroom setting if you have a sympathetic teacher who isn't too much of a bore. And if you can get over the death by tedium that is the process of learning all that grammar, the literature is definitely worth it!
> Not sure I'd bother with Latin or Greek if I had my time again though.


I think just about any subject can be fun learning providing the student convinces him/herself it will be fun and/or the teacher (if there is one) knows how to teach in an interesting way. I remember dreading Shakespeare class in my senior year of high school, but I had to take it for it was on the College Prep curriculum.

Well, this teacher related the universality of Shakespeare to connect with all of us teenagers. ie: When reading the passage of Othello, "Your daughter is with the Moor making the beast with two backs." He stopped us, and asked us to think about that line. One by one, we started laughing and giggling when we realized what that meant. I mean, what high school student doesn't enjoy some kind of reference - especially such a clever one - about sex? He would jump up on his desk and pretend act out sword battles during King Lear and such. He taught us how to LOVE Shakespeare and that there was something in his writing for everyone regardless of age, gender, economic class, personality, etc.

It turned out to be one of the most fun, inspiring, interesting, and fulfilling courses I ever took in school. It gave me a HUGE appreciation of Shakespeare and I am forever grateful to that teacher.

It's just a shame that there are as many (if not more) teachers who could suck the life out of the most interesting subjects as well, making one dread the class every day. I love science, and I had a chemistry teacher who was as dry as the Sahara Desert. This guy could somehow make a story about how he killed a grizzly bear with a spoon boring.

It's one of the great keys to success: Know what you're good at, and equally important, know your limitations.

V


----------

