You’re a writer – you know how it goes. You spend the minutes and hours and days of your life writing something somebody will read, someday. Maybe that someday is today, or tomorrow! Maybe!
Because, you know, winners never quit, right? And quitters never win, so…
Sooo… what about the guy who is building that moon rocket out of paper soda straws. It’s recyclable, see, so when he comes back from his trip to the moon, why, he’ll just toss the whole thing into the blue bin.
Should he keep trying, because winners never quit, or should he seriously think about it and abandon the idea, in which case he’d be a loser because he certainly wouldn’t be a winner? Winners don’t quit, do they? Ipso facto…
Those adages don’t take into account what the thing is that you’re quitting, do they? Making a quilt out of live bees, roller skating over Niagara Falls, walking from New York to London? Must one, once started, continue to do these things?
So, obviously qualifications are in order.
Winners with good ideas should never quit.
Quitters with bad ideas could be winners, but only if they quit a bad idea.
See, my problem is, I fall for this empty-headed jingoism.
Live, love, laugh. Okey doke! Sing like no one’s listening – “To dream the impossible dream, to fight the unbeatable foe…”
“Must you?” my wife calls from the kitchen.
The challenge I face with the winner/quitter conundrum is: what IS a good idea?
I’ve spent over 30 years chasing out what I thought were good ideas, only to find them not so much, and eventually had to quit them. Quitters never win.
I’m running down a few good ideas right now. But, are they?
Am I building a soda straw moon rocket? Am I, in fact, making Mr. Peanut Yard Art?
If you ask an AI, like ChatGPT, they tell you it’s a brilliant idea. That’s a clever plan – no one has thought of that. It’s what sets you apart from everyone else. Your niche.
No help there.
My wife is, like, meh. I know what she’s actually thinking: “here we go again…”
Or, is it all a question of time? Is there a time limit until you reach that point where you should just quit?
Anybody with a brain will tell you building a moon rocket out of paper soda straws is absurd (plastic, well, now, that’s different…).
So, does the guy throw his soda straw rocket plans in the dustbin now? Or must he carry it all out until the rocket collapses under its own weight or consumes itself in a waxy fireball? At what point does he not be a winner any more?
I had a friend who followed the adage “If you’re not first, you’re last.”
These things are crippling, aren’t they?
Of course, the answer is that other adage – the one that says it’s the journey, not the destination.
THAT adage screws up the whole mix.
It’s okay to quit, because it’s the journey. It’s okay to never quit, because that’s the journey, too. It’s okay to be first, or last, or somewhere in the middle, because… let’s just be you and me, okay? You could spend your whole life sitting on the John, because, hey, that’s the journey.
From now on, I’m disregarding any jingo statement that comes my way. Today is first day of the res…ehhh. You’re only as happy as y… ehhh. No turn on red… ehhh.
Nope. My new plan is to take my advice ONLY from fortune cookies…
John D Reinhart 