I quit so I could fly
It’s one thing to give up, to throw in the filthy towel, to kick the bucket so hard you bruise your big trotter. It’s another to stay unequivocally complacent, to wake up every single day and medicinally meditate on some outdated “heal your life” slogan. So where’s the line? I’m over it. I’m done with incessant quotes spamming me with some low-grade “when you feel like quitting think about why you started!” idiom in size 9 Arial font, designed up so it emulates an 18th-century scroll.
I want to vouch for the quitters, I want to stand up for the people who impulsively fall, I think there’s something empowering about vacating dead dreams.
Oh god, whenever I get into one of these moods I know I’m about to slap down some real shit. Stay with me, I think I might be onto something.
Since I was a kid I was taught to pursue my dreams, road bumps were ingrained in me as a test of defiance or strong will - any hurdle could be overcame if you just gave it bit more juice. If you tried a bit harder, if you invested more of yourself, gave it another nudge. If one more person tells me tomorrow is a new day, I am going to combust into a million fucking pieces.
So, when does this narrative become redundant? At what point is your resilience your undoing. I think it’s the moment the last butterfly in your stomach enters your digestive system. I think it’s the moment you fall out of love with something, out of love with someone, out of love with yourself. When you’re primarily living on auto-pilot mode, patiently idling around in a lacklustre present, dreaming of an ideal future.
Recently, I’ve had the time to reflect and shift my life’s paradigm. I’ve only just begun to comprehend how much of myself I gave away to dead-beat goals, how long I spent blindly following paths that had cliffs as destinations and how much of my life I’ve handed out like slices of cake to people who are lactose intolerant, who never wanted a full-slice of this fine arse, who ate me in halves and expected an unconditional fullness.
What I am saying is, I’ve quit so many things as of late and genuinely, I’ve never been so happy. In a time when everything has been mirky and each day seems to unravel new poisonous problems, I’m waking up smiling. I haven’t popped lorazepam in three weeks, I haven’t drowned myself in booze to the point of belligerency in so long I can’t even remember what a dusty 4 AM kebab tastes like.
I quit my job, I spent so long trying to convince myself that working was for the best, that it was building me up, but I’ve learnt that it was breaking me day-by-day. I learnt that I was hurting myself every day by showing face, I learnt that it was my fault and my fault alone that I persistently tried to show up 30 minutes late every morning. I know the turbulent economy has everyone clinging tight to their occupation and I respect that, but for me, letting go filled my cup. I think this is a vital factor to consider, please listen to me, if you have to spend 8+ hours of your day investing yourself into someone else’s dream that doesn’t align with your innate soul’s compass, don’t.
I’ve quit people who I once considered to be ‘friends’. I learnt that I was giving energy into relationships that had no return, that even though there was no screamingly obvious ‘to hell with you’ moment, our souls didn’t float in the same stratosphere anymore. I learnt that having as many friends as I could count on my chubby fingers is far more fulfilling than a list of “hey babes, haven’t seen you in weeks! Let’s do a kombucha and a walk on Tuesday arvo” - I’m not dishing out any more time to plans that never seem come to fruition. I’m so fucking over people-pleasing. I would rather just smile when I see you and we can both finally stop attempting out of courtesy to form a friendship that will always be lukewarm. I need my friendships to be piping hot. I want friendships that change me, that burn me in the best way possible, so I can evolve and ultimately heal renewed. I want friends who take me for the ride of my life, who force me out of my Eden Terrace box and into gay bars at 2 AM for nothing else but a vodka lime and soda, DMC in the dark and all-night boogie under the cheap disco lights. I want to shine when I am with you.
I’ve quit looking for love. This is coming from someone who was perpetually playing hide-and-seek with Mr Right on Bumble. I am absolutely done trying to find my soul mate. Good god, fuck that. If it happens, it happens. I can no longer attempt casual, small talk. I’d rather play the fiddle on Grinder for the forseeable future. I think I was putting so much pressure on myself to get my love life in order that it was ultimately insidious. That’s cool if you’re 25, have a mortgage in Milford, a 6 month-old pug and matching couples pyjamas that you so frequently post about in VSCO filters and amass thousands of likes on your shared IG account you created to document your first home’s renovations - but that’s just not me. I’m ruthlessly single and I’m loving it.
So where does this leave me? I’ve just relentlessly outlined what I’ve quit, do I have anything left? Am I a sad soul aimlessly trying to fill a bottomless void? No, quite the opposite.
How I see it is I now have 24 hours in a day, 86,400 seconds to be exact, to fill up with the energy that makes the hairs stand on my arms and pasty thighs. I’ve let go of so much that I don’t need to suck in when I slide into new situations that feel right for me. You see, this is where I think quitters might just be onto something. It’s a defective exercise to swim against the current, sometimes you need to let yourself go, to fall, to float back to square one. Sometimes you need to accept that leaving will bring you immediate pain, but it will also clear your calendar, it’ll clear the crap. Sometimes you need to quit in order to fly. I wouldn’t have found my wings If I was still typing up press releases on the latest dietary supplement. I’m proud of myself for blocking out the noise, for acting on a whim, for listening to my gut and trying to recreate myself from the ground up. I’m throwing myself into a career trajectory that makes me want to wake up. You’re the only person who can truly make yourself happy, you’re the only thing you can’t quit on. Cut-the-fluff, you’ll thank me for it later.
Words — Liam Sharma
