I was going to write a title, but then I quit
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I’m a quitter. In elementary school, I quit piano after two years. In middle school, I quit art after a week to join orchestra, only to quit that after three years (if you were there during that era, sorry for the controversial decision). In high school, I gave choir a try. That lasted the same number of years as piano. Now at the end of my freshman year in college, I’ve already quit one organization.
If you’re a recruiter or an officer of an organization, please don’t reject me yet. Now that I sound like a complete loser, let me reassure you that I’m still very much involved in extracurriculars and personal interests. I’ve been crocheting for four years now. Prior to that, I danced for eight years and participated in debate for four years in high school. In college, I’ve found three organizations that I am passionate about and see myself staying involved in for my entire college career.
I called myself a quitter, and you can call me one too. Seriously, it won’t hurt my feelings. “Quitting” has such a negative connotation, but I think of it as equivalent to “leaving” or “disengaging”. It just means that it wasn’t a match. Like a relationship! Or a shoe! You were never the problem, the thing you quit was never the problem, it just wasn’t meant to be.
One of my best friends recently confided in me about something that bothered her: she doesn’t know her niche. She was supposed to put her favorite music artists on an Excel sheet, and everyone’s answers were coherent enough to be in the same genre. Unlike theirs, hers was all over the place. “If I was a singer, I wouldn’t even know what niche I would be,” she said, “like I’m a little bit of everything but not enough of anything.”
To be enough of anything. What a paradox! As if any of us, tiny specks in the glory of the universe, could ever be enough of anything. And at the same time, just existing is everything and certainly enough of it too.
But wouldn’t that be so boring? To be forced to have a “niche”? Call me a quitter, but I would rather try a million things than to be forced to stay with the first thing chosen. Yes, I’m going to wear four colors that don’t go together on Tuesday and then show up to class in all black on Wednesday. Yes, I’m going to listen to Taylor Swift and then have Drake come in right after and kill the mood. Yes, I’m going to crochet for the whole night today and then not touch yarn again for a week. As I told my friend, there’s no threshold that requires you to be either this good at something or this immensely passionate about it that you’ve suddenly met the requirement to do it. You’re allowed to have multiple interests and also be equally as bad — or good — at them!
Okay, so how does having multiple interests relate to my initial tangent about quitting? One of the best pieces of advice my older brother gave me when transitioning to college was this:
You don’t have to do everything. You’re just trying stuff out right now and that’s tiring but good because you can figure out what you don’t like.
So in attempts to do the same, I give you this piece of advice:
To quit is to try. Don’t avoid quitting because then you may be accidentally limiting yourself from finding the next best thing. Instead of figuring out what you do like, figure out what you don’t like. The only way to do this is to embrace being bad at everything.
If you’re scared, let me share with you how I’m taking my own advice to heart. My roommate is extremely talented at sketching, and I try to copy her sketches for fun. I got a ukulele in middle school (very 2017 of me), and I play it when I’m bored or stressed. After having so much fun with that, I decided to ask my parents for a guitar for my birthday. Although I swore I would never listen to country music, I’m giving it a try. I’ve never been super athletic, but one of my new favorite things is playing pickleball with my friends on a random weekday. You’re even witnessing one of my latest “tries” by reading this! And despite all of the things I’m trying, I’m still going to quit some of them. For example, in typical “New year, new me” fashion, I had a reading and running phase at the beginning of the year but lost interest, so if you added me on Strava or Goodreads, there’s my explanation for the recent inactivity. As you can see, these things are so non-trivial that it means nothing and everything at the same time.
My mom once told my older brother that she was worried I would quit everything I tried. A genuine concern to have, I agree. In response to that I say, I’m not supposed to know what I want to stick with at 18, much less have known what I wanted to stick with when I picked up piano at 10 or the violin at 12 or singing at 14 or even my first college organization at 18.
I’m thankful for the memories and friends I’ve made in the activities I’ve quit. I’m thankful for the lessons I’ve learned in the interests I’ve stopped pursuing. But I’m most thankful for the opportunity I’ve gotten to move on with exploring my life that is only given in the act of quitting things that no longer serve me. So, yes! I’m a quitter! But the one thing I’ll never quit is trying.
