abaya

The short question: What kinds of things have you "quit" or bailed out on? How did you make the decision? Did you have any regrets afterwards, or was it a "never look back" type of thing?

For example, most people know when a person should be getting out of a bad relationship. We see it all the time on TFP... people who are on the edge of getting out of one, or freshly gotten out of one, but in the end, usually they feel like they've done the right thing. They know it was time to quit the relationship for X reasons, and most of us agree with them. Common sense or something. (Don't worry, I'm not talking about that situation for myself right now!) No one wishes they had stayed longer in a bad relationship, once they're out.

But what about other endeavors? When does it become okay to quit a job, or a committee, or a sports team that you play on, or bailing on a commitment to buy a house, or quitting a city because it makes you unhappy to live there? So many people advocate "hanging in there," but at some point, everyone either resolves the conflict and gets motivated to commit themselves again, or they hit a breaking point and decide to quit, cut their losses, move on. I'm curious about how people make those kinds of decisions... when does the goal stop being "to hang in there," and start being, "How the hell can I get out of this situation?"

----- The long part... (feel free to skim)

Me, I used to be a pretty good quitter when I was a kid. I took every kind of lesson possible (ballet, tap dancing, tennis, swimming, music, etc), and quit damn near all of them within a few years, max. I remember waking up one day before tap dancing lesson when I was 6 or so, and telling my mom that I didn't want to go anymore. She said I didn't have to. That was it. I moved on.

As I got older, I became a very committed person. Once I joined a team, I didn't quit, even if I wasn't very good... as long as I got some pleasure out of the activity (running, rowing, etc), I found enough motivation to keep doing it. Even waking up at 4:30am 6 days a week for 4 years (college crew), I didn't start to doubt my commitment until the last year... but I held on. I finished that commitment, I finished college, I went through the paces to become a teacher, I survived my first year of teaching (I simply could NOT quit that year, there was no option), and started graduate school.

So that is the reason behind this OP. The first year or so of grad school was alright for me... challenging, but I really enjoyed it, too. It was worth the effort to me, just like always. The 2nd year was less worth it, and I was starting to think about quitting after I got my MA degree along the way. Then I got to go to Africa and Iceland for research in 2005, and that boosted me for a couple of semesters. I kept hoping along the way that my funding for the dissertation research would not come through, so I would have a reason to quit, by being forced to do so. Didn't happen. I got the funding, ktspktsp and I got married in a hurry so we could move to Iceland in March 2007, and here we've been ever since.

I haven't felt any intrinsic motivation to do this thing for about 3 years now. And yet, for the people closest to me, my greatest supporters on this path... none of them say that it's okay to quit, even when this thing brings me to tears on an almost weekly, if not daily (right now) basis. If I felt this way about a relationship, I would have been done years ago. No way would I have hung in there. I have no desire to be a professor or continue in academia. There is no reward for me at the end of the tunnel, other than having the "PhD" at the end of my name, and knowing that I "hung in there" enough to get a degree that I'll never use, and waste 2 more years of my life not working, not contributing, not having a normal life. That's 5 years of being unhappy with my professional life, at a time when I'm supposed to be moving up in a company, succeeding and working into management positions. And I'll have to start all over again, when I get out, in a new field... because I sure as hell am not continuing in this one.

So at what point can I say "I quit," and have it make sense to everyone around me? How do you make these kinds of decisions without feeling like a cop-out? Taking into consideration all the effort that other people have invested in me, to get me this far... and who would be so disappointed in me if I quit. They are really the only reason I have been doing this for the last 3 years, and the only reason I can see myself doing it for another 2, if not longer. Any personal joy I felt about it is long gone.

__________________
And think not you can direct the course of Love;
for Love, if it finds you worthy, directs your course.
--Khalil Gibran