Cate Hall on Quitting

Cate Hall writes about quitting:

When people think about quitting, it’s hard because they’re comparing the rich web of attachments they have now to some mostly blank slate, or, worse, the possibility of disaster. However, what’s more realistic to imagine, if you’re leaving something you’re no longer aligned with, is a future with more to love than you have now. Those things you will be attached to in the future are currently obscured by the impassable barrier of time, but they’re still out there.

I’ve always felt that I was born with this intuition: it’s what allowed me to drop out of university after a year, and, later, to leave well-paying, interesting project for the next thing.  

But the force has weakened me, and it’s something I realize I need to cultivate.

What’s missing in Hall’s essay is that it’s not enough to just break orbit from the mundane-but-survivable, because if that’s all you do, then there’s a danger of defining yourself as what you’re not doing, and getting stuck there just as much.

That, it turns out, I’m also very good at.