Grapnel

This winter’s steady dose of snowfall mixed with sub-zero temperatures conditions me to pay little attention anymore to dire warnings about hazardous storms and dangerous cold.  So when the garage door creeps up its track this morning to reveal a thick ledge of snow standing proudly at my feet, I’m not deterred, blasting my new Saab 9-3 in reverse.  It takes maybe fifteen minutes and one-half mile to acknowledge today will not go as planned; I’m better off turning around, hitting the deserted coffee shop and heading home.  Laura, the voice of my GPS, would not be happy with me if she were recalculating my route.

On the radio at this very moment, the morning talk hosts are asking the quitters to call in, those who abandon their commutes in favor of returning home and nestling into their “dirty pajama bottoms”.  I guess I qualify (although I have no plans to change from my sweater dress and boots).  This causes me to think about what really defines a quitter, and why we are so quick to claim that quitting is bad.

The negative connotations of quitting are taught to us early in life.  I can remember being that prospective parent who swore, right along with the rest of the tribe, that if my kid signed up for sports or some other activity and decided mid-way through that it wasn’t for him, he was going to finish anyway.  I’m not raising any quitters, right?  Fast forward to the realities of dragging my five year old to his soccer games; immune to my pleading he’s planted on the sidelines defiantly in his towering strength of stubbornness, refusing to take the field.  I didn’t sign up for soccer to engage in a battle of the wills with my kindergartner nor to watch other people’s children play the game. But was he missing out on some huge life lesson around perseverance and tenacity because I seek equanimity and enjoyable Saturday mornings?

We want our children to learn how to work through difficult and ambiguous situations, to find the strength within that it takes to stick with the Cub Scout meetings even if they don’t like every activity or to get through a class with a teacher they’re convinced has it out for them.  We want them to experience the bursting pride making it through situations they weren’t quite sure they’d survive evokes.

 

I believe it’s important to teach my boys to honor their commitments, to suffer the disagreeable, to stretch into the unpleasant, enduring some pain so that they can truly revel in the joy that comes with accomplishment.  But I also want them to differentiate between obligations and options, feeling empowered to choose what’s healthy for them, with the understanding that sometimes that means saying “I quit”.

We can waste a lot of time and energy in jobs and relationships that are futile, unable to delineate what we can control (ourselves) and what we can’t (everything else).  We find tremendous power and relief when we’re able to assess a situation making the decision to graciously bow out because we’ve done all we can to fix what’s broken or affect positive change. Sometimes what’s wrong is more than one committed soul is capable of repairing. It’s this wisdom that makes the difference for us adults in the real world.

Relationships are complex. I can’t help but see parallels to the frustrations my kids relate with teachers and my own past aggravation with managers I struggled to respect, or team members I felt weren’t pulling their weight. The irony is when we’re able to tune out the perceived injustices swirling around us this is the very behavior that makes it possible for us to stay in it.  When we discard what belongs to others, focus on how our strengths will get us through the mess, we find ways to influence we didn’t imagine were possible.

Sometimes we are the quitters, and for good reason.  But sometimes, when we think we most want to quit, we find within us exactly what’s needed to stay.