Jeffrey Lockwood

And really, I guess what it comes down to is a wise or a good quit is one that in which an individual quits for the right reasons at the right time and in the right way.

And any one of those we can screw up.

Well, I wouldn't say that I am an advocate of quitting when the times get tough or when things get hard.

But there is a kind of wisdom about quitting, knowing when and how and why to give up.

And so quitting is, I think, is much more complicated than that's a character flaw.

It's part of living, and wise quitting is part of a full life.

I would say that wise quitting reflects, well, what the Greeks called phronesis or practical wisdom.

And it's kind of a combination of, you know, like, how should I put this?

Book learning and street smarts, right?

It's both rational thought, but it's also...

emotionally sophisticated.

So it's a complicated endeavor, something that I think we get better at with practice.

And really, I guess what it comes down to is a wise or a good quit is one that in which an individual quits for the right reasons at the right time and in the right way.

And any one of those we can screw up.

One of the things that we can do in terms of trying to decide whether this is a good quit is to engage our friends, to engage mentors, people we respect.

Ask them, am I quitting too easily or conversely, am I foolishly persisting?

And then you move on, you look at it, but I think we need to learn from a quit.

Well, did that do what I wanted it to do?

Or should I have hung in there a little bit longer?

And so it's possible that we can regret.