Should I Stay or Should I Quit

I was standing at the front door when both my boys came home last week from their first day of school. I was filled with excitement and nervousness. My youngest son is a 6th grader at the junior high, and I greeted him when he got home.

“How was your very first day at the junior high,” I said with more excitement then was probably necessary.

“I’m done dad,” he said very matter of factly.

“What do you mean? You’ve been there for ONE DAY!”

“Yeah I’m done. Not going back.”

About two hours later my older son who is a freshman in high school came walking through the door after a full day of school and two hours of soccer practice (he made the freshman team a week earlier despite not really knowing how to play soccer . . . I don’t have high hopes for the freshman soccer team).

“Well Chase, talk to me. Tell me everything. How was it?,” I asked again with the kind of excitement probably better saved for something a whole lot more important and exciting then completing one day of high school . . . . on a separate note, I may need to find a hobby so that I don’t scare my kids off with my over-zealousness in regards to how they spent their day at school.

“School was good dad, probably going to quit soccer.”

And just like that I had one kid ready to quit school altogether and another ready to quit freshman soccer less than a week after making the team.

I was being challenged. My kids were throwing down, and I needed to rise up. Be the kind of father who sits his kids down and says things like “Winners never quit, and quitters never win.” I needed to be the guy who reminded them that “Once you quit one thing, then you can quit something else, and pretty soon you’ll get good at being a quitter.”

Here’s my chance to actually parent. Do something more than just be the guy who hands his 14-year old kid a bottle of lighter fluid without thinking when he says “Having trouble starting the grill dad.” And for the record his singed eyebrows did grow back.

And yet . . . . is quitting really all that bad? Is giving up a crime? Maybe we simply live in a society that tricks people with false notions of honor for sticking things out. Or for staying.

I say people who won’t walk out of a bad movie, put a boring book down halfway through it (and that’s a shout out to my wife who ROUTINELY complains about her boring books yet WON’T PUT THEM DOWN TO START A NEW ONE!!!) or search for a new porn clip when there’s a dull scene, are not heroes but rather victims of a “staying society.”

We shouldn’t commend those people, but rather ostracize them.

You know that guy in the office who is all bitter because he’s been there for 20 years and has never gotten the recognition he deserves? He’s a stayer!!! You know what stayers get . . . they get a gold watch, a great funeral or maybe a retired number.

You know what quitters get . . . time. They get time. There’s a lot of stuff to try out there, and you may not get to try it if you don’t quit what you’re doing now to pursue something else.

You know what Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, Michael Dell, David Geffen, Larry Ellison and Ralph Lauren all have in common . . . well they’re all billionaires and they ALL QUIT college. America is about freedom and opportunity, which I’m pretty sure are just fancy words for quitting.

In fact, the next time I see my kid throw a board game and all its pieces into the air when he’s losing I’m not going to scold him, and call him a “poor sport,” but rather I’m going to commend him and tell him he’s probably the future leader of our country.

My wife pretty much quit giving me blow jobs once we got married, and I don’t think she regrets that decision. Come to think of it my to-do list consists mostly of things I need to quit . . . my landline, dessert, donuts, my porn habit, my cable service.

Obviously my 11-year old son is not going to quit the junior high. And I’m happy to report that my older son has decided to stick it out with the freshman soccer team, and I am convinced that he will be better for it (good work outs, some new friends, and a good way to get involved at a new school). And NO, I did NOT sit my kids down and advise them to turn and run every time things become difficult or unpleasant. All kidding aside, I don’t believe in that.

But I will say that while we may admire stayers, we celebrate winners, and maybe sometimes you gotta quit something before you can win. It’s called risk. Sometimes you have to quit the Cleveland Cavaliers to win with the Miami Heat. Sometimes being a quitter isn’t all that bad. Unless of course we’re talking about blowjobs in which case you’re just a sad, sad, sorry-ass quitter and you should be embarrassed and probably ashamed. Seriously!! Come on!!

I’m trying to figure out what to quit at this very moment so I can win something…anything…but nothing is coming to mind, so I’ll keep working on it.