Finishing Everything You Started Is Not a Virtue But a Waste of Time

Giving up on your pursuits is not a failure. Sticking through is not a virtue but often pure stubbornness, a waste of time.

Now, do I mean you should stop chasing your dreams? Of course not!

But it's best to know when to throw in the towel early, change course, and find alternative routes to your goals.

Here are 3 stories of "giving up" that moved me forward:

I thought I would never enjoy driving. However, to go hiking in the mountains, I needed to get better at it. But starting with the parking brake on a steep slope gave me anxiety. If you know, you know.

At one point, I just realized: it's a pointless self-torture. I don't need to learn how to drive a stick-shift car (which is the common way in Europe). I gave up on it, and since then I actually enjoy road trips with automatic cars.

My favorite fantasy book - Mistborn - has 7 books, and it takes place in two different eras. I was obsessed with the first 3 books, the storyline, and its universe. These books were the kind that you just can't put down.

But the 4th one started the new era, and I couldn't connect. Somehow it was off. But I kept reading it, giving it another chance day by day, until I was halfway in.

It was at that moment that I asked myself: "Why am I reading this? The whole point of reading fiction is to enjoy it". So with that, I gave up on finishing the saga, giving time and space for other books.

My previous startup was doing great when I quit. We had new customers, investors, potential to keep growing more and more.

But it also came with a lot of stress (not the kind that is sustainable for a long time) and a lack of freedom (I couldn't travel the world like I do now).

So after years of hard work, I just gave up, and left. Looking back, I waited even for too long.

But that's how the sunk cost fallacy works. We stick to ongoing activities, because we feel we already invested time/effort/money, and we don't want them to go to waste.

So here's my advice: when you notice that there's anything that's not giving you joy anymore: find your overall objective and see if you can get there by following different paths.