To Complete and Utter Failure

She is six hours from home and just starting college. Every weekend, she finds a reason to go back, She never knew how much she loved her family. She starts leaving Thursday nights and missing class on Fridays. She comes back in time for class on Tuesdays. 

Finally, she just quits coming back. This whole college thing just ain’t gonna happen. At least, not this far away from home. Screw the grades.

So we could look at this and call it failure. In fact, all the F’s on the report card say it for us. And that’s $10,000 down the drain. She’s gonna have to pay that back. It’s harder to go back to college after a semester like this. Why didn’t she just stay? Why give up like that?

The story is that if we stay with something when we hate it, when it’s harder than we dreamed, when we can’t see the value, then later--months, years--there’s a big pay off and it all makes sense. “That’s why I needed to learn French!” or “That’s what algebra is good for!” We will be rewarded for our grit and determination.

At very least, we can say we never quit.

But until you have quit, you can’t really know the value in it. Walking away. Finally just saying “Forget it.”

You’ve imagined it. Your boss steps into your cubicle and asks, again, how the new design is coming. They aren’t due for another week, and you want to say, “Look! They will be done! Don’t you trust me? Am I 12??” but instead you say, “Fine. Almost done.”

Or maybe you get it wrong. You put the decimal in the wrong place or make a bad prediction and that’s it. You’re fired. They don’t even apologize. No, “Hey, sorry to have to do this…” No, you're just told to pack your things and leave within the hour. Some mistakes will not be tolerated.

Source: http://morethansound.net/

You will feel terrible. Worse than terrible. If you walk away or if you are told to go away, you will reconsider your whole life. 

Tom Andrews wrote in a poem about pain, that pain “simplifies” you. So does failure. Simple is the hardest achievement to endure. Complicated is distracting and seductive. Simple will require all your patience and none of your attention. Failure will require all your strength and none of your loyalty.

Go ahead. Walk out the door.