Knowing when to quit. When witnessing someone give up on a task, like running a mile or patting one’s head while simultaneously rubbing one’s belly or even performing an at-home circumcision on your 3 month-old using an instructional YouTube video (yes folks, that actually happened this week), some people love to spout what they believe to be the following motivational cliché: winners never quit and quitters never win. Well, Jason, I say that’s hogwash! Sometimes quitting is exactly what a person should do. In fact, I’ve done it several times and miraculously my self-esteem didn’t plummet lower than the ratings for the final season of “Heroes”. In high school I participated in an exchange program that allowed me to attend a sister school in the swanky Boston suburb of Newton. Ever since my middle school years, when I spent thousands of hours swooning over New Kids on the Block, I had my heart set on going to college in Boston, so it seemed logical to test the east coast waters my junior year and go on exchange. Well, color me surprised when I arrived in Bean Town and everyone walked around with an invisible stick lodged firmly in their bums and my classmates tried to impress me with talk of getting wasted at parties with the male soccer players from a nearby school. Toto, I thought, we are definitely not in Kansas anymore. I was used to laid-back liberals from the “best coast” who swilled endless cups of Starbucks coffee and chatted excitedly about literature and film, instead of booze and hand jobs. My three-month stint in Massachusetts was cut short by a month or so and, though I felt a tad guilty about jumping ship, I was thrilled to be back in my rainy hometown among like-minded teenagers. For college I decided to stay in familiar territory and journey a thousand miles south or so to Scripps College outside of Los Angeles. I planned on working in the film industry after slaving away for four years and southern California just made sense. Plus, I had gone to an all girls’ school for eight years, so the vagina-friendly Scripps seemed like an excellent match. Well, Jason, I bet you can predict what happened. That’s right, I was fairly miserable so far from home (the suffocating heat, smog, endlessly brown environment, and lame parties just didn’t float my boat), so I packed up my bags in May with no intention of returning next Fall. Anyone sensing a theme? Flash forward three years when I have graduated from the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma (30 miles south of Seattle) with a useless degree in Sociology and no clue as to how I want to spend the next chunk of my life making money. The film industry was still calling to me, but I wasn’t ready to head back to L.A., so I joined Americorps with grand ideas about giving back to my community…in Maryland. Blerg. I agreed to participate in the program for 10 months, but somewhere around the 6-month mark a cloud of depression started following me around so, in order to maintain my usually sunny disposition, I bid farewell to my service comrades and flew home, vowing to never move away from the Seattle area again. So far, so good. Looking at my history a small-minded person may consider me to be a quitter. I prefer to see myself as someone who is smart enough to walk away from a miserable situation to avoid transforming into a murderous lunatic. As your friend, Jason, I promise not to scold you when you give up at something that is slowly sucking all the joy out of your life. In fact, I will applaud you for being wise enough to get the hell out of there and never look back (your involvement in Gulliver’s Travels was a fine opportunity to practice this philosophy; ah, hindsight). I guess ultimately it’s all about knowing what’s worth slogging through and, luckily for you, I’ve decided I’m not going to give up on this blog. It may take me another year to complete, but one day I will write the 365th reason why you should befriend me. Just like those sexy closeted men from Brokeback Mountain, I can’t quit you, Jason Segel. You couldn’t get rid of me if you tried.Saturday, August 27, 2011
Reason 291
Knowing when to quit. When witnessing someone give up on a task, like running a mile or patting one’s head while simultaneously rubbing one’s belly or even performing an at-home circumcision on your 3 month-old using an instructional YouTube video (yes folks, that actually happened this week), some people love to spout what they believe to be the following motivational cliché: winners never quit and quitters never win. Well, Jason, I say that’s hogwash! Sometimes quitting is exactly what a person should do. In fact, I’ve done it several times and miraculously my self-esteem didn’t plummet lower than the ratings for the final season of “Heroes”. In high school I participated in an exchange program that allowed me to attend a sister school in the swanky Boston suburb of Newton. Ever since my middle school years, when I spent thousands of hours swooning over New Kids on the Block, I had my heart set on going to college in Boston, so it seemed logical to test the east coast waters my junior year and go on exchange. Well, color me surprised when I arrived in Bean Town and everyone walked around with an invisible stick lodged firmly in their bums and my classmates tried to impress me with talk of getting wasted at parties with the male soccer players from a nearby school. Toto, I thought, we are definitely not in Kansas anymore. I was used to laid-back liberals from the “best coast” who swilled endless cups of Starbucks coffee and chatted excitedly about literature and film, instead of booze and hand jobs. My three-month stint in Massachusetts was cut short by a month or so and, though I felt a tad guilty about jumping ship, I was thrilled to be back in my rainy hometown among like-minded teenagers. For college I decided to stay in familiar territory and journey a thousand miles south or so to Scripps College outside of Los Angeles. I planned on working in the film industry after slaving away for four years and southern California just made sense. Plus, I had gone to an all girls’ school for eight years, so the vagina-friendly Scripps seemed like an excellent match. Well, Jason, I bet you can predict what happened. That’s right, I was fairly miserable so far from home (the suffocating heat, smog, endlessly brown environment, and lame parties just didn’t float my boat), so I packed up my bags in May with no intention of returning next Fall. Anyone sensing a theme? Flash forward three years when I have graduated from the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma (30 miles south of Seattle) with a useless degree in Sociology and no clue as to how I want to spend the next chunk of my life making money. The film industry was still calling to me, but I wasn’t ready to head back to L.A., so I joined Americorps with grand ideas about giving back to my community…in Maryland. Blerg. I agreed to participate in the program for 10 months, but somewhere around the 6-month mark a cloud of depression started following me around so, in order to maintain my usually sunny disposition, I bid farewell to my service comrades and flew home, vowing to never move away from the Seattle area again. So far, so good. Looking at my history a small-minded person may consider me to be a quitter. I prefer to see myself as someone who is smart enough to walk away from a miserable situation to avoid transforming into a murderous lunatic. As your friend, Jason, I promise not to scold you when you give up at something that is slowly sucking all the joy out of your life. In fact, I will applaud you for being wise enough to get the hell out of there and never look back (your involvement in Gulliver’s Travels was a fine opportunity to practice this philosophy; ah, hindsight). I guess ultimately it’s all about knowing what’s worth slogging through and, luckily for you, I’ve decided I’m not going to give up on this blog. It may take me another year to complete, but one day I will write the 365th reason why you should befriend me. Just like those sexy closeted men from Brokeback Mountain, I can’t quit you, Jason Segel. You couldn’t get rid of me if you tried.
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