Quitting Intro: Sometimes It's OK to Throw in the Towel

I listened to a recent Freakonomics podcast where quitting was the topic of discussion. If you are unfamiliar with Freakonomics, their schtick is to look at the "hidden side of everything" from an economist's point of view. Overall, I'd say their shows are fascinating. Now, I'm not an economist; in fact, I have never taken an economics class other than Consumer Economics in High School which showed me how to balance a checkbook and shop for a car. But this podcast got me to thinking about some of the things I have quit over the years:

- High School basketball, after sitting the bench for 2 years
- High School track, my junior year, after realizing I am not a fast runner
- horseback riding, when I realized the expense and time required
- rock climbing (expensive and time-consuming; though I may pick that back up, depending on what the kids want to do)
- the Pre-Medicine program in college (how petty can people really be?!)
- going to church regularly (in favor of daily meditation)
- the Ph.D. program at Colorado State (sick of school)
- riding my bike to work (leaning over the handlebars is hard on the back, plus too many close calls with crazy drivers)
- training a search & rescue dog (too many folks who elevate dogs to "people" status)

and more recently

- ski patrol (rather spend time with my family on my days off)
- drinking alcohol (I was not drunk at work, or DWI, or abusing people, or anything like that, but so far I feel much better overall without alcohol intermittently in my system; definitely look for more on that topic later)

If you're not a regular Freakonomics listener, I highly recommend it. The quitting show in particular caught my ear mainly because quitting often leads to positive change. It definitely has for me--there's a lot of mental clutter you have to stumble over/wade through when you are doing things you don't enjoy or find productive, especially when those things are at the expense of activities you'd rather be doing. In the spirit of the Holiday season, I thought I'd tell you some of my quitting stories and why I'm glad (thankful?) that I made those changes. In the coming weeks, I'll document 3 or 4 of the things that I was deeply involved in, but ended up quitting for one reason or another (sometimes for multiple reasons) and which I don't miss that much (other than the "idea" of it). So, stay tuned!

Check out the Zen Habits Blog for a more "spiritual" look at quitting (and sacrifice).

Other "Big A" news:

The thumbtack profile I started two weeks ago has already netted me a wedding gig on Dec 7. So, that's cool!

The Affordables are playing Nov 16 for a private party in Jemez Springs, NM.

The Craig Martin Experience is playing a fundraiser on Dec 14. There we will debut some Christmas arrangements.

I'm almost done with the bottom half of my digital upright (for book & media storage). What a project! But, if it's worth doing, it's worth doing right, right? I think it'll be great when it's done.

That's it for today. Have a great week!