Mastering the art of quitting

 

I can say with some confidence that there are very few things that I am really good at. I can make a nice cup of tea, a mean carbonara, and great playlists. That’s barely a glowing CV. When it comes to quitting, however, I am something of an expert.

Recently, I began confessing the news that I have quit my MA for good.

I’ve been working on it for so many years and I’m ashamed to admit that I haven’t seen it through to the end. My husband and my closest friends have done nothing but support me while I’ve been working on it, and I know that I’ve let them down.

But it’s not just that.

It’s that this is what I suspected would happen all along. This is the outcome I was trying to avoid. I quit lots of things. (I don’t know if you’ve got that impression about me yet, but you’ll discover it’s quite the recurring theme).

Over the years I’ve developed more than a bad habit of quitting, it’s become more of a reputation. I start things with plenty of enthusiasm and before long, I drift and flail and eventually flake out.

So let me just say here and now that it’s incredibly likely that I will probably quit this blog that I just started. (NB. This is not the first time I’ve started a blog…)

There are probably a whole range of psychological reasons for my inexplicable urge to quit things, but I even quit figuring out what they were.

Because what I really need to quit is quitting.

The MA was supposed to be the thing that broke the quitting cycle. I was convinced that I was going to see it through and come out with a degree and a first draft of my memoir.

Doubts about my ability to finish have been hovering for years now and I shrugged them off and tried to tell myself that I would get there in the end.

After I submitted half of the first draft of my memoir earlier this year, I knew that the gig was up. I felt very little about what I had created. It wasn’t the book I wanted to write. Not even close. I could barely even call it a first draft – merely words slung together on the page.

The problem was that I wasn’t passionate about what I was writing anymore. And that has always been the problem. Many years ago, when I was young and naive and certain that I would one day be a successful writer, I felt very  sure that I had something to say and that writing was my purpose in life.

These days, I feel less like I have anything to say and have no passion. Has apathy got the better of me, or am I simply looking for my raison d’etre in all the wrong places?

Do I even have a raison d’etre? Or should I just accept my etre sans raison (needless to say I was never great at French).

I always thought that writing was my passion but somewhere along the line I completely lost my love for it.

Maybe I’ll find something else. Maybe not. In the meantime, there’s always blogging…