One of the best books I almost read. I began it several years ago and never fully finished it because the "rest of the story" was so obvious, at least in my application of it. Surprisingly few people ever consider "quitting" an art and powerful tool in the navigation of their life as well as their every day choices. I have always had the "quit" card tucked discretely in my back pocket but this quaint little book really exposed the internal workings of my strategies in life when it comes to quitting. I still have this book and it is still lying around my office within reach. I only have to see the cover to remember all the times I have pulled out my trump card from my back pocket and walked away clean in several of a number of predicaments in this world. "The Art of Quitting" by Evan Harris. BIG Zen!
"Boundaries" have always been a big deal with me and with many other people that I have found to be of integrity in business or in personal situations. I truly had no choice in the end but to quit when someone or something crossed my boundaries and pushed me into discomfort enough to go against my grain. I never considered choosing to stay or continuing in these situations. There have been times, however, when I consciously chose to endure a situation for whatever benefit I wanted from it.
THESE are the snags and snares that get us all caught up in places where we don't want to be with people we do not want to be with doing things we do not want to do. Whatever those situations may be, jobs for money and survival, marriages for love greater than sufferage or people for the functions they fulfill that you can not fulfill, there comes a time, and frequently, that "enough is enough".
I "schedule" my endurences and weigh them out according to gain for pain in most undesired situations. "IF" I can find no other way to achieve the goal at hand, I will endure whatever I have to to achieve that goal "IF" that goal is that important to me. How important is it really, is the first real consideration to lay out on the table and scrutinize. Maybe it isn't as important as peace of mind or comfort in being. Usually it isn't. But then we would rarely achieve our goals should we constantly quit any uncomfortable situation.
The pro's and con's can be confusing and the weight of the need against the weight of the price even more confusing. EXCEPT that what really happens when you quit, what really takes over your mind is something that completely exhilarates your heart once you are free. Mental or emotional enslavement to a job, a marriage, a religion, a neighborhood, a social niche or an obnoxious person, whatever it is, when freed, produces a released consciousness that springs up as state of mind is like no other. Once in this state of mind, everything looks clearer. You find that you are somehow "refreshed" and lighter, optimistic and expanded in new solutions and ideas for achieving that goal some other way. True genius springs from these moments of release. The most impressive aspect of it all is that you are "unblinded" for a time and can see better ways, easier methods and a plethora of inventions and strategies that had not crossed your mind while you were chained to the uncomfortable choice and commitment that was holding you down.
There is a clear and obvious reason for this, once you free yourself of the thinking patterns and narrow allowances that your situation demanded and had restricted to you. If people know they have to stay inside a box, even if it is by their own choice, they will block and ignore any temptation to get out of that box from entering their minds. They often will go to laborious lengths to create mantras that they repeat to themselves to insure that they program and enforce their choice to stay inside the box. I too will do this in circumstances where I know I have to endure something for a limited time, such as pain from a surgery, fatigue from a day of over-scheduling or a meeting with someone I do not like in order to get on with my own business of staying in my box. BUT these are all temporary impositions and I know in the back of my mind that I have that "quit card" in my pocket and that I am going to use it when I get through with the temporary commitment.
So, am I saying that as long as it is a short term situation, a temporary commitment, a quick meeting once a month, that it should be tolerated? No, I am suggesting that even these temporary choices are holding back the genius, the clarity of refreshed ideas and solutions that are blocked out by choosing to stay in a box of mental limitations with mantras etc. to endure something for as long as you can because you have no other choice. The only REAL reason you have no other choice is because YOU have decided that you will not allow any other choice. It is absolutely incredible to look back after you have quit and see how much time you wasted in the box when an easier way of it was an option all along. How many times have you heard someone speak of this?
So, am I saying that as long as it is a short term situation, a temporary commitment, a quick meeting once a month, that it should be tolerated? No, I am suggesting that even these temporary choices are holding back the genius, the clarity of refreshed ideas and solutions that are blocked out by choosing to stay in a box of mental limitations with mantras etc. to endure something for as long as you can because you have no other choice. The only REAL reason you have no other choice is because YOU have decided that you will not allow any other choice. It is absolutely incredible to look back after you have quit and see how much time you wasted in the box when an easier way of it was an option all along. How many times have you heard someone speak of this?
This is not to say that quitting and moving on does not bring a sudden drop in mental functionality and security status quo and can immediately create a new kind of discomfort, as we all know. But the Zen of this is to take a walk, elevate the mind, float the problems in front of you and let it all realign and then forget about it for a day or three. Yes, private critical analysis is something we are not openly encouraged to do when it comes to the "systems" we live by in our lives. I used to call myself a "systems analyst" but could not use the title because this only meant a computer system analyst in the current usage of language, as if these were the only systems in the world. Religion is a system, fiat and monetary rules are a system, government is a system, fashion and style is a system, cultural eating habits and methods of cooking are a system. Nearly everything is a taught pre-designed system when you break it all down.
MOST of these are not good systems and many are designed to be dysfunctional systems from the start, but that is another story. You do not have to use any of them if you do not want to. So when you revise the systems you are using in your life, possibly changing them altogether to better suit your REAL needs, options spring from everywhere. THIS is outside the box. When we stay inside the box, even by a knowing choice, we stay in the limited conceptual systems of that box because nothing else will work inside that system but that system's pre-designed components. You see, when you get real good at this, you can actually use pieces of various systems in your life to create a new system that works much better for you. In other words, you can use these systems in a way that they are no longer using you to achieve their goals. But you can not do this inside their boxes. THAT is why it is a box, to keep you in and do what someone else tells you to do for largely their benefit and but a "little bit" for your benefit.
MOST of these are not good systems and many are designed to be dysfunctional systems from the start, but that is another story. You do not have to use any of them if you do not want to. So when you revise the systems you are using in your life, possibly changing them altogether to better suit your REAL needs, options spring from everywhere. THIS is outside the box. When we stay inside the box, even by a knowing choice, we stay in the limited conceptual systems of that box because nothing else will work inside that system but that system's pre-designed components. You see, when you get real good at this, you can actually use pieces of various systems in your life to create a new system that works much better for you. In other words, you can use these systems in a way that they are no longer using you to achieve their goals. But you can not do this inside their boxes. THAT is why it is a box, to keep you in and do what someone else tells you to do for largely their benefit and but a "little bit" for your benefit.
The "quit card" or the "trump card" is how you make it all happen. Yes, you have to master the art of using it timely and sometimes delicately but the "delete" button in your life is just as important as any other button. If you are a person that wants mental freedom, higher consciousness, smarter thoughts, this button should be used quite often, even regularly, if only but to take out the trash and dysfunctional systems in your life.
I , too, am one of those people, one of those "there is a light at the end of this tunnel" thinkers in everyday life. But I have learned that the "quit card" is well within fast reach and there is a temporary comfort in that as there is for anybody who has his trump card ready to go. It truly does "trump". You truly do win your freedom and they lose your slavery and what comes out of this shift can be pure gold.
I , too, am one of those people, one of those "there is a light at the end of this tunnel" thinkers in everyday life. But I have learned that the "quit card" is well within fast reach and there is a temporary comfort in that as there is for anybody who has his trump card ready to go. It truly does "trump". You truly do win your freedom and they lose your slavery and what comes out of this shift can be pure gold.
Regardless of that small empty comfort in my back pocket, I have to recall and admit that the most brilliant changes I have made in my life have ALL come from that moment of release, that day of freedom when I simply just up-ed and quit something that I could no longer justify as healthy in my life. Insights into everything I was doing and how I was doing it was crystal clear and the weight of the gain measured against the weight of the pain became undeniably obvious. NO PAIN is the goal. So if I am not living in gain with no pain (I did not say no work and effort, I said no "pain") then I am not using my head. Because it can be done. I have proven it to myself several times over, it can be done.
Why slip back into dysfunctional situations and system games again anyway? It happens. Why go back again if life is so great when you get out of it all? Truthfully, it is the fear of people that would harm me by way of reputation for being so different and free. Don't you have that threat too? People who can harm your reputation with slander and lies, people who can bang on your door and insist that you owe them your time and attention, people who will complain in your face for doing things different and showing everyone else up? Yes, you do. We all do in this social disfuntional system. So it is fear of these harmful people, often loved ones, that forces me back into a box to prove that I am boxed just like they are and am no threat to them and can pose no more for curiosity and criticism.
Why slip back into dysfunctional situations and system games again anyway? It happens. Why go back again if life is so great when you get out of it all? Truthfully, it is the fear of people that would harm me by way of reputation for being so different and free. Don't you have that threat too? People who can harm your reputation with slander and lies, people who can bang on your door and insist that you owe them your time and attention, people who will complain in your face for doing things different and showing everyone else up? Yes, you do. We all do in this social disfuntional system. So it is fear of these harmful people, often loved ones, that forces me back into a box to prove that I am boxed just like they are and am no threat to them and can pose no more for curiosity and criticism.
Well . . . . haha . . . even this can be mastered. It takes a lot of courage to face off with these people and it takes even more to not insult them in the process and make things worse. No one ever said that life on planet earth was anything more than a game of survival. Physical, mental, emotional and spiritual survival. So, we rally back and re-position to take another run at it with more skills and experiences, a little closer to the mark, with the all powerful tool still in our back pockets, "The Art of Quitting" and we win it every time.
So enough for the reasons of returning to the box, there are many that can apply. The point is, the "quit" card is your ticket out when you have had enough, in this strapped and suffocating modern society of rules and regulations. Just look at it, it is pure power. Even a scary power when mastered to perfection. But it is a power card in the deck that you own.
I will leave you with some quitting techniques to think about from this book and you probably will not have to read it either to understand the reminders and messages in it. Buy it anyway, just to carry it around to keep you on top of your game. These techniques say it all. Happy quitting! (Is there any other kind?)
So enough for the reasons of returning to the box, there are many that can apply. The point is, the "quit" card is your ticket out when you have had enough, in this strapped and suffocating modern society of rules and regulations. Just look at it, it is pure power. Even a scary power when mastered to perfection. But it is a power card in the deck that you own.
I will leave you with some quitting techniques to think about from this book and you probably will not have to read it either to understand the reminders and messages in it. Buy it anyway, just to carry it around to keep you on top of your game. These techniques say it all. Happy quitting! (Is there any other kind?)
|
|
|
|
Technique 1 - Make A Scene (get thrown out)
Technique 2 - Change Horses in Midstream Technique 3 - Quit Bit by Bit Technique 4 - A "Reasonable" Quit Technique 5 - Achieve and Vanish Technique 6 - Fail and Disappear Technique 7 - The Hedge Quit Technique 8 - Retroactive Quitting Technique 9 - Get Fed Up Technique 10 - Quit in the Clutch |
Technique 11 - Repudiate your ideas
Technique 12 - Abandon and Conceal Technique 13 - Quit While Your're Ahead Technique 14 - Unquit and Requit Technique 15 - Burn a Bridge Technique 16 - Plot and Endure (my favorite) Technique 17 - Deny Involvement Technique 18 - Give Up Technique 19 - The Principled Quit |
The Art of Quitting
Evan Harris
|
So, when all is lost and you are at the end of your rope, let go. It may be the greatest gift you ever give yourself. It certainly has been for me. You never know what you will happen when you throw the baby out with the bath water. An empty bowl is always ready to hold something new. What are you hungry for? One thing is for certain, there is something refreshing about a blank page, an empty canvas and a new start. Paint as many choices as you want.
. . . and every now and then, add just a little bit of "pink".
|
Swan Dive
personal note: This simple little humorous book has been so personally important and vital to me that it is kept nearby at all times on my desk or espresso area. This is not conscious. There is an unconscious need to have it around me. The cover has yellowed, there are small coffee splatter stains on the corners and it never has a designated "place" to put away. After seven years in my possession, it "floats" around my office to this very day. I have written the blog article on "The Art of Quitting" in a very light and shallow context but I cannot emphasize enough how crucial this commonly discouraged option in life is to human masteries and achievements of all kinds.
personal note: This simple little humorous book has been so personally important and vital to me that it is kept nearby at all times on my desk or espresso area. This is not conscious. There is an unconscious need to have it around me. The cover has yellowed, there are small coffee splatter stains on the corners and it never has a designated "place" to put away. After seven years in my possession, it "floats" around my office to this very day. I have written the blog article on "The Art of Quitting" in a very light and shallow context but I cannot emphasize enough how crucial this commonly discouraged option in life is to human masteries and achievements of all kinds.
RSS Feed
