{"id":26097,"date":"2018-11-25T23:01:51","date_gmt":"2018-11-26T05:01:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.davidmcelroy.org\/?p=26097"},"modified":"2019-08-26T01:28:30","modified_gmt":"2019-08-26T06:28:30","slug":"how-do-we-know-when-to-give-up-persistence-might-be-a-futile-choice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/?p=26097","title":{"rendered":"How do we know when to quit? Persistence may be futile choice"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Inspirational quotes often give very bad advice.<\/p>\n

In fact, if you want advice, I can find multiple pieces of folk wisdom or quotes from famous people to share with you \u2014 almost none of which would agree with the rest. I can give you folk wisdom about never giving up or<\/em> I can give you folk wisdom about cutting your losses before they get worse. Which one is good advice?<\/em><\/p>\n

Why is so much of our collective folk wisdom contradictory? And why does following some of this wisdom not seem to help us?<\/p>\n

I’m thinking about this tonight because I ran across a quote which was attributed to Winston Churchill: “Never give up on something that you can’t go a day without thinking about.”<\/em><\/p>\n

Is that good advice? I have no idea. I guess if you don’t give up on the thing and your persistence brings it to pass, it was great advice. But what if you spend years persisting — passing up other opportunities — in order to stick with something? If you end up with nothing, it was terrible advice and it leaves your miserable.<\/p>\n

I wrestle with this issue all the time. I used to be too prone to giving up quickly. Then I read a lot about persistence and examples of people getting the things they wanted because they persisted, so I became painfully persistent when I truly wanted something.<\/p>\n

Another reason I think about it so frequently today is that something which I wrote on the subject six years ago mocks me today. I wrote an article<\/a> making the case for not giving up on what you truly want. It features an excerpt from Napoleon Hill’s book, “Think and Grow Rich<\/a>,” which tells the story of a couple of prospectors looking for gold who quit digging — and gave up — when they were only three feet away from the vein of gold which someone else would find after they gave up and left.<\/p>\n

It’s a great story. The graphic I chose for the piece illustrates the lesson quite well. Lots of people preach this lesson. In fact, New Orleans Saints coach Sean Payton somehow found my article and had a copy placed in the lockers of each of his players when they were going through some adversity a few years back. (It was reported at the time by the New Orleans Times-Picayune and a New Orleans radio station, although I can’t find the link right now.)<\/p>\n

But when I see people randomly finding that article every day — it’s been read by 47 people so far today, for instance — I sometimes want to find them and say, “Hey, maybe that was bad advice. Maybe you really ought to give up.”<\/em><\/p>\n

Let me go back to the alleged Churchill quote. He says I shouldn’t give up on something I can’t go a day without thinking about? What if I can’t go an hour without thinking of this thing I want? Does that make it an even better idea? Or does it just mean I’m doomed to torture myself obsessing over something I can’t have — something I can’t force myself to give up on?<\/p>\n

I wish I could just say that enough faith and desire will bring us what we need. There are a lot of smart people who teach that faith and intense desire will eventually bring us what our heart wants. But what if they’re wrong?<\/em><\/p>\n

Pat Terry had a piece of wisdom in a song he wrote back in 1984. In “Truth is Like a Sword,” he wrote, “Demand too much and you may end up empty-handed, demand too little and regret is your reward.”<\/em><\/p>\n

That line haunts me. When it comes to love, maybe I’ve demanded too much by loving in the way my heart wants to love. I’ve ended up empty-handed so far. I’ve tried to do the opposite, too. I told you recently about a woman I dated a couple of years ago which was really an example of expecting too little — and regret is all I felt about every moment I spent with her.<\/p>\n

So how do we know when to persist? And how do we know when to give up?<\/p>\n

I often look at the bits and pieces of wisdom that are embodied in quotes \u2014 even the ones that I use at times \u2014 and I wonder if they’re wisdom or if they’re just our way of saying, “See? Someone else agrees with me!”<\/em><\/p>\n

If I want to persist — if my heart is desperate to hold onto hope that I can have what I need — isn’t it natural to gravitate to wisdom which agrees with doing what I want to do?\u00a0I’m not sure that wisdom from the past is anything more than a catalog of words we choose from to justify what we want to do.<\/p>\n

I can’t decide whether I regret writing that article six years ago urging people not to give up. At its core, I think it’s good advice — for most people and in most situations. I think we’re far too prone to give up easily. I think we’re far too willing to walk away at the first bit of adversity.<\/p>\n

But what if we’re asking for too much — something which we can’t have which we need — and we destroy ourselves by ending up with nothing? Is it worth destroying ourselves in order to prove a point about persistence?<\/p>\n

I don’t have the answers to these questions. I obsess about them frequently lately. I wish I could answer them. But sometimes it doesn’t really matter what we consciously decide. So maybe it’s a moot point.<\/p>\n

Maybe there are times when a heart locks in on something it needs — and refuses to accept a substitute or a second choice. Maybe there are times when it’s not a matter of choice anymore.<\/p>\n

Maybe the heart is determined to persist — despite what the brain’s reason has to say — even if that means ending up empty-handed and empty-hearted. I’m not sure I have a conscious choice, because my heart won’t let me do anything else.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Inspirational quotes often give very bad advice. In fact, if you want advice, I can find multiple pieces of folk wisdom or quotes from famous people to share with you \u2014 almost none of which would agree with the rest. I can give you folk wisdom about never giving up or I can give you Keep Reading<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[247,482,481],"class_list":{"0":"post-26097","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"tag-love","8":"tag-persistence","9":"tag-wisdom","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p1x9iR-6MV","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26097","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26097"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26097\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30032,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26097\/revisions\/30032"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/davidmcelroy.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}