When Perseverance Is Not The Answer
By: The Wishful Thinker
Tags: Quitting, Perserverance, Self Improvement, Freedom, Psychology

It was Thursday, Valentine’s Day when I dropped out of college. I remember going to sleep the night before, my stomach burning with the softness of freedom, a feeling I had not experienced in some time. Though it was only 18 months since college began, it felt like it had been ten years.

When I first came to college I had high hopes. It would be the time, finally, when life would start to turn the corner. Even though I knew better — that you can’t outrun your problems—I had become seduced by the idea that you can.

What began as insomnia a month into my first semester, tossing and turning through the night until the sun cracked through the window, soon became despair. I thought I had experienced loneliness in high school, but college brought it to a new dimension that, frankly, I didn’t think was possible.

At night, I would stroll around the campus for hours, lost in thought and conversation with myself—having imaginary conversations with others who I wished were there, saying things to them I wish I had when I had had the chance.

I had my first night-terrors during the first semester. After a month of sleepless nights, I had ravaged my dorm room in my sleep. All the books, papers — with two stacks a foot in the air — a crockpot, as well as everything else on my desk was thrown to the floor. My TV was literally leaning over the edge of the table, secured by a half-unplugged cord.

My roommate said I was screaming and seemed really angry when I had thrown everything during the night.

The next night terror was a few days later and was milder. I sat on the floor screaming at something, I think it was a nightmare, and I remember feeling deathly scared. I think someone was dying.

I don’t remember the terrors that well. But I do remember my roommate looking at me with an odd sense of fear when I woke up on those two mornings. He must have been thinking how my calm, external demeanor had been betrayed by the screaming fits at 4 AM. Was there something sinister under that demeanor? I can’t blame him.

During that first semester, I remember feeling like I was being swept away in the eye of a hurricane, and being sucked in by an ocean of warm quicksand. I wanted to be completely enveloped by something and carried somewhere far away.

The second semester brought dissociation. I moved farther away from myself, and, whatever I was feeling and thinking at the time, faded into the distance. I played video games most of the time to try and numb the pain of loneliness, and they also gave me a clear goal to pursue.

I think that playing the games is what got me through that semester. I couldn’t nakedly face what was in front of me any longer. I needed a buffer. For whatever reason, my grades didn’t suffer. Maybe I wish they had.

As things got worse and worse, and disappointment and frustration continued to mount, I still waited out — convinced that things would improve if I continued to persevere.

The two months of summer school was surprisingly my best time at college. Though that summer was lonely too, I began to believe that things were looking up. Was the dawn finally breaking?

I started the fall semester with a hope that I had not experienced since I had left for college. I crushed the first 6 weeks of the semester. I was able to manage my job and my classes and still enjoy my days. I felt that better things were coming.

They were, just not yet.

Week 7 was a little harder, but I still felt okay.

Just a little turbulence, I thought.

Week 8 I broke.

Photo by Simon Buchou on Unsplash

I don’t remember a lot about the next 8 weeks, maybe because they all felt like one continuous nightmare. I began to sink again. I was far away on the beaches of some shore I didn’t know the name of.

I remember laying on my bed in my studio apartment, staring at the white brick walls — and thinking what a cliche it was to be doing so — listening to sad music, and unsure and unaware of what I felt or thought. I was back in the void again. Something endless, something warm, but ultimately something empty.

I felt like a mirror that had been thrown against jagged rocks and melted into the cracks like lava. I was in prison, my body had locked up, and anxiety became stitched to every muscle as if Dr. Frankenstein had made me with an anxiety disorder in mind. I felt like I was dying.

Somehow, I made it through the rest of the semester. Inside, I knew that something was going to have to change or I was not going to survive another semester.

Going home over that winter break gave me warmth from being around friends again. My frozen muscles began to thaw. I reconnected with old teachers and mentors. I had a long conversation with one and I asked him:

“What drives you in life? Where do you get your purpose from?”

To push others forward, he said.

For the first time since I left for college, I was awake again. I didn’t know how long I had been asleep, it felt like years, but it also felt like no time had passed.

I went back to college, still unsure how I was going to make it through the next semester. I unraveled even more quickly after returning. The anxiety became much worse because I was awake. I couldn’t run from it anymore. And I was not going to go back to sleep.

However bad the anxiety became, I remember feeling moments of happiness almost every day for the month and one week I was in college that semester. The sun was out, there were girls to flirt with and make laugh, and there was a walk from the university to my apartment to cherish daily.

But, after a few weeks into the spring semester, the anxiety became truly unbearable. I would lay in my bed in the afternoons for hours, my body shaking. It would shake and shake and shake, and I couldn’t get it to stop.

Something had gone wrong. But I wasn’t going to die anymore. I had decided I wanted to live. During those 6 weeks, one of my other mentors helped me make the decision to drop one of my classes. I had too much on my plate. I had never dreamed of dropping a class. But that was all I needed.

One week after I had dropped out of one class, I dropped out of college. I had tasted the sweet air of freedom just briefly, and it allowed me to break out of my prison.

When I woke up on Valentine’s day, I don’t know if I had ever felt so alive. I logged into my account on the university’s website and, after a few minutes of staring at the screen — still shocked that I was actually doing it — filled out the form, clicked the “Okay” button, and dropped out of college.

I was an adventurer once again. I have not looked back since.

Photo by Greg Rakozy on Unsplash

Perseverance, A Virtue?

Believe me, I didn’t go to college with the intention of being a “dropout” and having the cliche breakdown — is that a cliche? I wanted to be taken seriously, and I didn’t think that dropping out of college during the first semester of my junior year was the way to do that. But by the time I left, I didn’t care anymore. I had found something more important than respect. I had found myself again.

Most of us have been raised with the value of endurance and perseverance instilled within us. And for good reason. When the going gets tough, and it will sooner or later, don’t quit. However, this doesn’t apply to every situation.

When we encounter resistance, it is usually a sign of one of two things. The first thing that resistance could be pointing to is that we need to get stronger to conquer whatever resistance is before us. This is the kind of resistance Edward Hickson had in mind when he pinned “If at first, you don’t succeed, try, try again.”

Thank God Thomas Edison didn’t give up on the first 1,000 attempts at making a light bulb.

The second type of resistance is harder to understand. This is the type of resistance that indicates the road we are on isn’t meant for us. It is the “round hole, square peg” phenomenon. The message for me was straight and simple:

This path isn’t meant for you.

I wasn’t able to hear the message for a while because I thought the resistance I was experiencing was the first kind. But, after enough resistance, I began to listen. I finally know the sound that is made when my soul is dying.

Sometimes our path forward is to un-persevere. To quit. To leave. To be everything we were taught not to be. Sometimes we have to be like water. We can test the bank with the sharp rocks but, if it is not for us, we can flow to where there is space to fill.

We have to respect ourselves enough to listen to what our bodies and minds are trying to communicate with us. There is a reason you don’t feel at home.

Quitting is not always the best choice, but sometimes it’s the only choice.

Perseverance Or Insanity?

The line between insanity and perseverance is a blurry one. Ask yourselves what the difference between these two sayings is:

If at first, you don’t succeed, try, try again.

Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.

I’m not saying there is no difference, but the difference is subtle. The first difference that makes the line between these two distinct is purpose. This is why the obsessive artist — who we may call insane — chasing his impossible project with all fervor, is actually more in tune with a positive expression of perseverance than insanity.

But the second difference between these two may be more helpful. The phrase right after Hickson’s quote — “at first you don’t succeed”—that we rarely talk about “don’t give up too easily”, is the key. Our parents were right, we should not quit . . . right away.

It is true that in many of the instances where we experience turbulence, things do get better. We do have to edit our rough draft, we do have to stay at our new job longer than 3 hours before we quit, and we do have to make a few attempts at starting the lawnmower before we get a new one. No one said life was easy. So don’t give up . . . too easily.

Insanity occurs when we have tried every angle, given it our all, have been patient, and still find we are running into the same wall. Insanity occurs when perseverance goes too far and turns into a chase where you are rowing a boat with one oar, moving in circles, convinced that if you row a little harder, you will finally go in a straight line.

I want to be careful, though, and say that sometimes, on the thousandth attempt, that wall does break—and you can finally walk through.

How Do I Know When To Stay Or Leave?

Photo by Zach Reiner on Unsplash

This is the first million-dollar question. It’s a million-dollar question because when we leave, it’s usually difficult to come back. The price of quitting before the time is right is high, and we do not want to forfeit any ounce of value that we have suffered for. So, how do we know?

For me, there were many signs that I could have left—and maybe should have left—college a month into it. But I needed to give it time. Did I give it too much time? Probably. But at least I was certain when I left that it was the right thing to do.

Now, having become acquainted with the voice that tells me when to quit, I can leave things earlier now because my quitting-ear is more attuned. I don’t suffer as much anymore because I know I can quit something that is eating me up inside.

There were three things that I did before I quit college that cemented the decision for me. I think everyone should do these things when faced with any big decision.

1. Talk With People Who Listen And Who You Respect

Most decisions are best made with others. Sharing your thoughts and experiences out loud with a helpful ear will clarify the uncertain aspects of an important decision.

In my case, I didn’t talk to everyone that I normally would have when making my decision. I didn’t do this because I realized something. I was so terrified of making the wrong decision, that I wanted someone else to make the decision for me. Through realizing this, I stopped asking others what they thought after I consulted four people.

My two best friends, and two of my mentors (the ones mentioned above), were the four people I talked to. I wanted to make sure I wasn’t about to throw away my future. But deep down I knew, I knew that I needed to drop out, and I knew things would work out.

And it was my friends cautioning me that cemented the decision for me. My conviction to quit was strengthened through their cautioning. It became my decision and mine alone, and their counsel was able to make that so.

2. Ask The Second Million Dollar Question

I heard this question posed by one of these two mentors many years before. He was describing how young people run away from their pasts, their faith, and their foundation so fervently, that they forget to ask where they are going.

“They know what they are running from,” he said, “But they don’t know what they are running to.”

So, the second million-dollar question is this: What are you running to?

It’s okay if you don’t have an exact destination in mind. I didn’t. I wasn’t able to see clearly, I had too much anxiety and cortisol in my body at the time to see much of anything in the future. But I knew that whatever I was running to, it was something that my soul was hungry for. That was enough for me.

If you are running out of a toxic or abusive relationship, then the reason you are running away will be sufficient enough. But you still have to ask the question: How will I make sure I don’t end up here again?

Asking this question will help you not fall off the edge of the earth once you quit, dropout, move on, or otherwise leave something once important to you. The question points you in a direction of where to go next. We do not do well when we sit in static water.

3. Plant A Tree, Grow Some Roots

Before I dropped out, I wrote myself an essay entitled “Why I Am Dropping Out Of College” that recapped what my goals were when I went into my college, my experiences at college, the anxiety, depression, and helplessness I was dealing with, as well as my plans for the near future after dropping out. It turned out to be a pretty long essay, but it was extremely therapeutic. But this was not why I wrote it.

I wrote it because I didn’t want to regret my decision. I didn’t want time to be able to warp my memory of college and magnify the handful of good memories and numb the ocean of bad ones. I wanted to be able to remember and feel and know what it was to shake on my bed for hours on end, years after I had left. I needed to remember exactly why I was leaving.

Once I wrote it, I was sure I would not regret leaving, and I was even more sure that I was doing the right thing.

Grow roots into any important decision you make. Write out your thoughts. Let your teeth really sink into the decision. This prevents you from making a decision impulsively which you will likely regret later. Growing roots allows you to see the truth in all its naked glory. If the truth does set you free, then don’t be afraid of it.

Photo by Wil Stewart on Unsplash

A Little Light

Sometimes the path is clear, and sometimes it is blocked. Whether we are contemplating quitting a job, ending a relationship, dropping out of school, or making any other decision that requires us to leave something behind, we should do so carefully.

Yes, perseverance is great, but so is courage. Courage is what is required when perseverance isn’t. In our darkest places, we will not be able to see very far. But we have to follow the little bit of light that we can see and, trusting it to be our guide, know that it will lead us somewhere good.

It will.