Before we begin – a short plug for our Fall Fundraiser. For those who don’t know, we at STRIVE are developing a community center (creatively dubbed, The Center) to offer totlly free educational and youth-empowerment programs in rural Perú. Please visit our YouCaring fundraising page to learn more and support our development efforts.

Thank you to those who have supported already and to those of you who will. With your help we are doing real good in the world.

And now, back to our regular scheduled programming.

 

I recently heard two different radio programs discussing quitting –  “Freakonomics” and  “This American Life” two podcasts that I frequently turn to for company on easy, long, solo runs around La Parque Carolina. Freakonomics always tries for the non-intuitive take on common themes, and economist hosts Dubner and Levitt predictably sing the praises of quitting – flipping around the old adage, “quitters never win.” Levitt argues that people often get entrenched in tasks that end up costing so much more than they’re worth (in money, time, human capital, etc.). Like in poker, he argues, it’s important to be able to “know when to fold,” even if you’ve already got money in the pot. There’s an innate human desire not to waste efforts or resources spent on a task, but Levitt argues that being able to look past that and cut your losses is what drove him to success.

And then This American Life’s Ira Glass interviewed Evan Harris – the author of “The Quitter Quarterly,” a literary publication with the namesake theme – who seemed to tie all of our human essence and desires back to quitting. Several times, she spoke of how people begin things – tasks, hobbies, relationships, even life itself – just to quit them, and how she would soon undertake new tasks which she would inevitably quit. All things must come to an end (or, we must quit them, as she would say). To her, quitting something on your own accord – being the active quitter – is infinitely more rewarding than being forced to quit. To break up vs. being broken up with. To retire rather than be asked to leave. To hang up your own jersey instead of being laughed off the field, an old fart.

I think there’s a lot of truth in what they’re both saying. Especially in financial situations, I agree with Levitt that people have a hard time letting go, particularly when they are already heavily invested. But I think there’s something big missing from his formula.

I think if Steve Levitt evaluated my own decisions and priorities right now, he’d have some stern advice. Really? You graduated from a top-notch engineering university and your income is below the poverty line working for a community-service  startup? Where’s the return on investment? Sounds like you should quit and cut your losses and head to NASA or Lockheed.

 It’s true; likely to the dismay of my University’s statisticians, I find myself in the “under-employed” population. But for me, this life choice was never about money. And this is where Levitt’s quitting advice falls apart because – like so many economic formulae, it misses the unquantifiable and emotional aspects of decision-making that makes us human. In deciding to pursue STRIVE as my career after college, I was accepting that the return on the investment of my own life’s time and energy would come from the emotional reward of the pursuit of an ideal and the hopeful impact of those ideals on the World around me. In the eyes of an economist, it might be impossible to see this personal satisfaction as worthwhile given the typical investment and return model, but to me – and I’ve seen this in others – that reward can be as motivating as an investment banker’s end-of-the-year-bonus.

To Ms. Harris and Ira (yes, I’ve listened to enough “This American Life” that we’re on a first-name-basis), I think I would appear similarly in need of a quitting intervention. But, I’ve got a bone to pick with Ms. Harris. Let’s take a look at her claim that everything we begin, we have to and inevitably will quit (or elsewise face a horrible and depressing demise).

The fundamental problem with this hypothesis is that almost nothing is as clear-cut as she presumes. Sure, sometimes I might truly quit something, 100% – quitting my job, leaving my country, breaking up with my girlfriend – but even in those instances of apparent finality, there are still subtle levels of “the quit.” Do I really quit my job or do I just try to work part time? Do I leave my country forever or am I back for a few months a year? Do I break up with my girlfriend and never talk to her again or do we stay amiable?

I agree that almost every task we undertake will never stay at its initial intensity – what we may see as our number one priority in life as a 17-year-old may not be our number one priority in life at 40. But to assume that that means that somewhere between 17 and 40, I have to completely quit and abandon my older passions for new pursuits seems ridiculous.

When I was 17, music was my life. Every hour of every day, every class in high school, every long car ride, every family dinner, I thought in chord charts and mixolydian melodies. I saw a bright future for myself on stages, in recording studios. I saw myself a music major in college, maybe at Berklee. Who knows?

To my younger readers, this could come as a surprise. Sure, Tyler seems knowledgeable about music, I think I’ve even seen him pick-up a guitar a few times, but really? I didn’t know he was ever that serious. The truth is that over the years, my priorities shifted, my focus settling on my academic life, on athletics, on STRIVE.

But I never quit music and I never will. Music doesn’t dominate my life anymore, but – like a first love – I’ll never truly let go. And in the same way, while running currently manifests itself a full-time job, I know that, in time, it too will recede. But I will always be a runner – just as I will always be a musician, an engineer, a traveler, a writer, a mentor, an animal-lover, a reader, an outdoorsman, a DJ, a Bostonian, a STRIVEr…

So, no, Ms. Harris, I don’t have to quit. Maybe you see the world as black and white, start and quit, but to me life is more complicated than that. I don’t believe that one can truly quit something that they were ever truly passionate about (I know I can’t); like the ubiquitous pull of gravity, there will always be a tugging from that old source, no matter how faint. And though priorities will always shift, turning a new leaf doesn’t have to mean abandoning your previous life. It can simply mean reevaluating.

Don’t quit, but don’t be afraid to rearrange. Look at your return on investment, but don’t limit yourself to dollars earned and hours worked. Life is too complicated to break down your passions into simple start and end points, because true passions have no end. Their intensity may ebb and flow, but like the tides, will never fully recede. Quitting is too permanent for me. Levitt and Harris may call me crazy, but, with my passions at least, I know I’ll never, can never, quit.