It's the rest of the week. Shall we celebrate Quitter's Day?
Thanks to research performed by the fitness app, Strava, we know when most people have given up on their New Year’s resolutions: the second Friday of January.
And now we have ourselves an official “Quitter’s Day”. You can even buy Quitter’s Day cards for your friends.
So what would you like to quit?
How about quitting the idea that happiness waits for us on the other side of finally achieving a particularly illusive goal—an unfulfilled ideal that foments a nagging sense of disappointment?
These kinds of disappointments can take on a life of their own and we can get so used to them, that they become a normal part of our way of life and even our identity. We mull them over, nurse them, bemoan them—and may even use them as kindling in heated discussions.
Maybe we lie in bed at night, pushing back against disappointment with plans of how we can do things differently and how we might get everyone on board. We make a plan get just enough relief to stay stuck.
How do you quit that?
I’ve been experimenting with leaning into one of my most familiar, practically lifelong, disappointments—which means I look it in the eye and acknowledge it for what it is, rejecting (quitting) the tendency to either wallow in it (if I’m feeling sorry for myself), or dismiss it (sticking to the familiarity of status quo.
I pray for help and am reminded that the ideals we long for are not on the other side of achievement. They may be incomplete in this messy process of transformation, but they are part of the good that God is growing in and around us.
So far, I’m finding the best way to quit my particular unrestful cycle is to go through the day gathering happiness by noting the evidence of all that goodness and giving thanks for it.
Happy Quitter’s Day—may your rest be sweet,
Alicia