When Not To Quit

I ran across a blog posting today that, upon initial reading, disturbed me greatly. Enough so, in fact, that even though I’ve written my views on this subject a while back, I feel the need to address it again, because I think the author’s views are unfortunately shared by a great many people.

A caveat

I want to make the point that this isn’t a personal attack against the author, Scott H Young. From his website, it appears that he is an accomplished young man that has done a great deal of studying and thinking. On this, though, I think his views are off base.

The article, entitled When to Quit, asks the questions, “When is it time to stop pursuing your dream and start being realistic? When do you decide to quit on one path and take up another one?”.

His answers are…disturbing, to say the least, and it would seem that they are based on an unhealthy dose of cynicism (”the success bias”):

What this really means is that almost no popular self-help authors are going to have had the experience of pursuing a dream (like becoming an author) and not having it eventually work out. Sure these people will often note all their past failures as proof that they got where they are from hard work and by pushing through pain, but they did eventually reach their goal.

false assumptions, such as objective reality:

Understanding reality means that you have to accept that some of your dreams won’t come true just because you work hard enough, be creative enough or go to enough seminars. Life doesn’t work that way. Don’t base your decisions on a false model of reality.

and last but not least, confusion of dreams with goals.

Do goals just “eventually work out”?

Why do you think it is that people who’ve reached their goals reached them? I’ll guarantee you one thing: it’s not because it just “eventually work[ed] out”. They reached them because it was their intention to do so. No other reason. It didn’t just happen; what they wanted didn’t just appear out of thin air. People don’t achieve their goals by “hard work and pushing through pain”, but by deciding that they would do whatever it takes to achieve them.

What about people who didn’t attain their goals? It’s because they quit going after them. Why they quit doesn’t really matter. What is important to recognize is that their intent to achieve the goal was no longer there, whether by conscious decision or not.

What is “reality”?

“You’ll just have to face reality.” Why? And whose reality—yours, or mine?

“Facing reality” is too often used as an excuse to give up. I’m fairly certain that it was mentioned more than once to these people:

• Spud Webb, who in 1986 won the NBA Slam-Dunk Championship. Reality said that a 5′-7″ guy wouldn’t have a chance. Reality redefined.
• Wilma Rudolph, the first female to ever win 3 Olympic Gold Medals, lived the first years of her life in braces as the result of suffering from polio. The doctors said she’d never walk with out them. Oops! Reality trounced.
• The young boy suffered terribly from rickets as a baby. Malformed, spindly legs had everyone believing that he’d never walk normally, much less run. “The Juice”, O.J. Simpson, broke virtually every offensive rushing record there was. Reality bites the dust.
• A small, ragtag army takes on the greatest power in the civilized world, with few supplies, little training, and a shortage of weapons and ammunition. Reality said they didn’t have a chance. Thank God they didn’t pay attention—if they had, the United States wouldn’t exist.
• Reality said a man with a second-grade education wouldn’t amount to much. Abraham Lincoln proved them wrong.

Want more reality? The Wright Brothers (it’ll never fly), Henry Ford (an automobile for the working man? never!), Sir Edmund Hillary (Everest is too high…), Magellan (the world is FLAT!), Sir Winston Churchill (win against Nazi Germany?), Howard Hughes (the Spruce Goose is too big to fly!), Charles Lindberg (nonstop across the Atlantic? never happen), Alexander Graham Bell (what? talk through wires? you’re crazy!), Roger Bannister (no one can run a mile in four minutes. nope, it’ll never happen).

It’s too tiresome to go on.

Your reality is what you believe it is. Your world is what you believe it to be. That is reality. You can use reality as an excuse to give up, but that’s all it is.

Now, as a final question, I’d like to ask you this:

Would you rather have a success bias, or a failure bias?

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