I Quit
When has quitting paid off? The first thing that comes to mind is when I stopped wrestling. I wanted to include the story in my last post, but I never found the right place. Here goes:
I wanted to wrestle because I discovered that my dad was a wrestler. My dad is a bit of a black box, so when I learned that he wrestled, I joined the wrestling team. There’s probably some psychological explanation for my decision. My hunch is that I wanted to connect with my dad (especially after I quit baseball). But, this isn’t about why I started to wrestle, it’s about quitting.
The reason why I quit was that I found something else that I loved. That something, was skateboarding. I started to skate at the same time that I joined the wrestling team. To give you a time frame, this was between middle and high school in 10th grade, I think. Looking back, I recognize that it was good for me to try different activities. Eventually, I learned that I liked skateboarding more than wrestling. Wrestling, like baseball, often caused feelings of dread. Yet, there were a few redeeming qualities. The discipline it taught me was a good thing. Never have I trained like I had while wrestling. I learned that I liked to workout. What I wasn’t so interested in was grappling with another guy in the middle of a gym in tight clothing. Maybe you can relate? Additionally, I didn’t have the killer instinct wrestling requires. A few times, I did, and that was great and unexplainable. More often than not, though, I didn’t have it.
Skateboarding didn’t require a killer instinct, though discipline learned from wrestling was a plus. All you really needed was a little passion and a solid group of friends, of which I had both. That’s not to say that my friends and I were that great at skateboarding. We were okay. But that didn’t matter. We loved to skate and did it as much as possible. I can’t remember a day that I session with my buddies.
But that’s not all. It turned out that the group that I hung out with was smart and they were also some of the most creative kids in the school. Gradually, my grades went up. I began to like school. I also got into video and photography, which led me to design.
I should note that my grandfather is a designer. He told me not to become a designer. That made me want to be a designer even more. Which makes me wonder if the familial connection that drove me to wrestle is causing me to stay in design?
Regardless, the conclusion I draw is that quitting paid off. I had a much better friend group, and I was enjoying life much more as a result.
I’m glad I tried out wrestling. It wasn’t a mistake. Likewise, I’m so happy I went to school to be a graphic designer (as a consequence of skateboarding). Sometimes, you have to change things up, though. Sometimes you have to quit.