Quitting
by rrusczyk, Jul 6, 2009, 10:12 PM
(No this is not a Sarah Palin entry.)
Mid-way through my workout today, I started thinking about quitting, both in the specific and general sense. I read an article recently arguing that mild depression developed through evolution as a mechanism to help people abandon unreasonable expectations. I have no idea if that's accurate: a lot of the evolutionary explanations I see for how animals behave seem like untestable make-believe to me. Not quite hokum, but not nearly science. But it did get me thinking while at the gym about two questions:
1) How do you get yourself to quit when you should indeed quit?
2) How do you prevent yourself from quitting when you shouldn't quit?
I realized today that when I'm successful at either one of these, usually the key is having reasonable expectations in the first place. If I go to the gym expecting to do 32 sets and 30 minutes on the bike, I'm way more likely to quit at 12 sets than if I go expecting to do 20 sets and some ab work. So, whether or not that researcher was right about the evolutionary source of depression, I think there's something to the idea of reasonable expectations being a source of happiness.
Anyone else have good gimmicks for addressing either of those questions above? And make no mistake, they're both important. Sometimes it is very much time to call it a day. (Not meant to be a defense of Palin -- I can't understand the people who are arguing this is a political masterstroke, particularly without having the whole story yet. Whatever the story is, I'd love to be the campaign manager running against her in her next election if she has one. Talk about a cakewalk... OK, maybe it turned into a Sarah Palin post after all...)
Mid-way through my workout today, I started thinking about quitting, both in the specific and general sense. I read an article recently arguing that mild depression developed through evolution as a mechanism to help people abandon unreasonable expectations. I have no idea if that's accurate: a lot of the evolutionary explanations I see for how animals behave seem like untestable make-believe to me. Not quite hokum, but not nearly science. But it did get me thinking while at the gym about two questions:
1) How do you get yourself to quit when you should indeed quit?
2) How do you prevent yourself from quitting when you shouldn't quit?
I realized today that when I'm successful at either one of these, usually the key is having reasonable expectations in the first place. If I go to the gym expecting to do 32 sets and 30 minutes on the bike, I'm way more likely to quit at 12 sets than if I go expecting to do 20 sets and some ab work. So, whether or not that researcher was right about the evolutionary source of depression, I think there's something to the idea of reasonable expectations being a source of happiness.
Anyone else have good gimmicks for addressing either of those questions above? And make no mistake, they're both important. Sometimes it is very much time to call it a day. (Not meant to be a defense of Palin -- I can't understand the people who are arguing this is a political masterstroke, particularly without having the whole story yet. Whatever the story is, I'd love to be the campaign manager running against her in her next election if she has one. Talk about a cakewalk... OK, maybe it turned into a Sarah Palin post after all...)
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