Quitting

Wishing everyone a Happy New Year! (I know it's almost mid-January but this is the first post of the year, so...)

Strange topic to being the year with. Yet, maybe this explains my absence from the blog for a long time. Does this mean more posts going forward? It means hope, definitely.

I have been in a bad work situation. And I kept getting a lot of motivational advice from genuine well wishers on trying harder, adjusting, accepting.

And then I read this article on how a frog is cooked in hot water. (Ugh! Don't know why anyone would want to do that, but that's besides the point here.) If a frog is dropped in hot water, it will jump out, create mayhem in the kitchen and bring the Master Chef audition video to an abrupt end.

However, if you increase the water temperature slowly, the frog will go through the stages of being mildly uncomfortable, restless but still drifting; more uncomfortable but still mobile; and then extremely uncomfortable and trying to jump out. Now it can't jump because it's muscles are wasted away and have lost their strength.

I see it happening to people around me, in work and personal life. The situation is bad-they adjust. It gets worse; they accept, they work harder, they change, they wait. The situation becomes unbearable; then some try to jump, but can't because the world outside has grown too different and daunting. Some don't even try because they are too numb to feel the pain, devoid of will, or courage, or hope. They accept and wait.

Are they wrong?

Should we jump at the slightest discomfort?

Then what will happen to all relationships/careers?

And won't it be like admitting we are losers, that we are not strong enough to stay and fight when so many others are fighting bigger battles around us? 
"Isn't it like running away," I asked a friend. "Yeah", she replied nonchalantly. Then she looked at me seriously and said "Sometimes, that's the smartest thing to do."

What if we leave it till it's too late? I couldn't figure out how to pin-point the defining moment when to stop accepting.

But I did realize one thing, I needed to jump before I lost belief in my own worth or hope.




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