Cut Your Losses When It Isn't Meant to Be

Recognizing when to cut your losses is something they should start teaching in this place.

I’d much rather take “Intro. to Girl, This is Totally a Lost Cause and You’re an Idiot; Quit While You’re Ahead” over “Plays for Dummies” and “A Beginner’s Guide to Maps,” or whatever the entry level electives I’m currently taking are called.

Sometimes, no matter how badly you want to be the one who can fit the most marshmallows in their mouth at one time or have an affair with Andrew Garfield, it’s important to accept that some things just aren’t meant to be.

The truth hurts. But it can also set you free.

Why waste your time, energy and resources on an endeavor that is headed for failure, when you could focus your efforts on something better?

If you’re taking a class that you know is going to be too much work and you have the option to drop it, it would be foolish not to. Why risk hurting GPA and struggling through a semester of unnecessary work when you don’t have to?

There’s nothing wrong with being a quitter.

I wish I’d had this realization freshman year when I decided that, for some reason, biology was a class I needed to take.

You shouldn’t give up on something as soon as it gets hard, but not all ideas are worth following through with. Following through can be great, but it can also be a colossal waste of time.

Spoiler alert: I’m not preparing for medical school anytime soon. I definitely didn’t need to finish any semesters of biology.

We place such a premium on seeing every miserable task, challenge and relationship to its bitter end, but, by nature of the fact that most things suck, it can’t all work out in your favor.

Instead of sitting back and waiting for your failures to slap you in the face if (and when) they occur, let’s start encouraging each other to throw in the towel every once in a while. Wave that white flag in the air like you just don’t care and move on to something more worth your time.

I guess having other people call you a quitter could be a bummer, but do you know what else I recently gave up on? Caring. So, you’re a quitter now. Who cares? Not me.

At least you’re not a failure or an embarrassment. If anything, you’re smart for seeing that the costs outweigh any potential benefits and getting the hell out before you suffered any real loss.

Sometimes I can’t stand the heat. The logical thing to do is get out of the kitchen.

We should all consider getting out of the kitchen more often. Let’s stop pressuring each other to stay in these sweltering boxes of awfulness just because we made previous commitments to staying in the kitchen.

Find a new room. How about the bedroom? I’ve heard great things about the bedroom. No one ever says, “If you can’t stand the heat, get out of the bedroom.”

Knowing when to give up on people is probably the most challenging (I hear cowboys are particularly hard to quit), because it’s difficult to determine which relationships you should rally for and which ones deserve nothing more than a text that says “cut” and some “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” level memory loss.

Clearly I’m not an expert on anything, but in my experience, if every interaction with a person leaves you angry and complaining to your friends, who are two seconds away from quitting you because you won’t shut the hell up, that friendship probably isn’t worth saving.

Some relationships are salvageable, but other times your attempts at revival are completely worthless. As one friend put it recently, you can either prolong an awful situation, or you can remove yourself from it.

I’m not advocating that we give up on everything that requires exerting effort and making sacrifices. Some things are definitely worth the energy it takes to follow through, but when the pay-off is minimal, let’s stop being so invested.

Sell your stock. Buy an island.

I guess I’m a quitter and I think you all should be too.

Sorry I’m not sorry.