Trying To Figure Out The Life You Really Want To Have Doesn’t Make You A Quitter

You picked out something new to learn but you didn’t get into it as much as you thought you would. The app on your phone remains unused and the books neglected.

You started a new job with high hopes and you actually fit in well. Months later, you were looking for something new. Something else to spark your interest.

You moved to a new place with a brand new house-mate, but it’s been a while and it still doesn’t feel quite like your home. You want different scenery, different faces.

Plenty of people around you will see these changes in your life as a negative. You cannot commit to anything. You flutter between one thing and the next. You’re a quitter.

Those sorts of comments and those sort of people can really get you down. It can turn your excitement to do something new – to try a different challenge – as a bad thing. Remember at school, you read stories of kids having dreams to become doctors; they went to school, studied hard, went to university, studied harder, got a job as a doctor, got married, had kids, and were still doctors; that sort of straight path of satisfaction seemed like the most logical way to live. It was the only way you know to get through life.

Doing lots of different things can therefore feel wrong.

? The job I want, the hobbies that fit, the place that can be my home?

Take a bus ride in the morning and watch all the people. See how they are suited and booted, packed lunch at the ready, about to start their day at work. Imagine how many times they have taken this bus journey to work. How long they’ve had their job for. If they are truly valued in their company. What sort of over-time they’ve done to get noticed.

Wonder if they have ever thought about switching it up a bit – maybe one day they’ll cycle. They could get their second-hand bike out of the garage, stick on the helmet that’s been gathering dust in the loft, and feel the fresh air slap their face as they made their way to work. What if it rains? Would they have to buy some cycling gear to keep their work clothes clean? What if Anita from upstairs notices and makes some sort of comment about it? Then the whole office will know, and presume that the bus isn’t good enough anymore, or you’re not the person they thought you were. Perhaps they thought that changing isn’t such a good idea.

They’d rather avoid the extra hassle. May as well use the easier option.

Could you imagine any of those people on the bus making a radical change in their lives? You’d like to think so. Somebody else on this planet must be like you – not everybody can do the same thing every day for the rest of their days, can they? Or are you the only one? Maybe there is something wrong with you. Maybe your secondary school teacher was right when he told your parents that you fail to apply yourself to anything. Maybe that’s just who you are.

Or maybe you do apply yourself, you just don’t settle for anything less than amazing. You want the awe-inspiring job. The gorgeous city surrounding you. The slap in the face of fresh air as you excitedly cycle to work. It’s not wrong to be ambitious for greatness. To want something that you haven’t quite found yet. To experience all the different shades of green grass on the other side of the fences.

As long as you are always trying new things, doing your best, and enjoying yourself, then how is that bad? How is that failure?

Trying different things is what it means to be human. Curiosity is not a bad thing – it doesn’t kill cats. It creates opportunities and adventures. It is something to be celebrated.

Somebody that has tried a million different things is a person that has earned more experience points. If you don’t believe me, ask Ralph Waldo Emerson; “All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make, the better.”