This analysis is interesting, but I think there’s a small self-reference problem hidden in it: what exactly counts as an “impossible goal,” and who gets to decide that?
It’s obviously true that some people chase almost “fantasy-level” ambitions. But for most of us, the reason we keep going is that, somewhere in the background, we still believe our goals are possible, possible enough to justify the time, effort, and even psychological pain. If some external standard comes along and declares “this is impossible, you should give up,” that can reduce stress in the short term, but it may also plant a long-term regret that keeps growing with age.
Looking back on my own life, the goals I abandoned for internal reasons (“this no longer fits who I am / I don’t want to pay this price anymore”) are the ones I can live with. I learned from those failures and even feel a bit stronger because of them. The painful ones are the goals I dropped mainly because someone else convinced me they were impossible. Those still feel like open loops.
So maybe the more useful takeaway isn’t “giving up is good,” but: keep reassessing your goals realistically as you grow. If, after a sober look at your skills and constraints, you still feel a goal is worth the cost, then commit and try. At least when you’re old and sitting in a chair somewhere, you’ll be less haunted by “I never even gave it a shot.”
> So maybe the more useful takeaway isn’t “giving up is good,” but: keep reassessing your goals realistically as you grow.
This is ultimately what the article is talking about. It's not about giving up on your ultimate goal, it's about giving up on your current approach and finding other ways to progress towards your goal.
This is what I got from it. It’s pretty much synonymous with how I approach things. I wouldn’t call it “giving up,” rather than “reviewing and adapting.”
I like your advice. It's like setting some metrics on your own progress and happiness level.
On the other hand, sometimes without pushing, you won't be able to fully enjoy something "later".
Stupid example: learning piano or guitar. Which metrics would you use?
In addition, here the issue is also about children, not just grownups: when to stop paying for their "xyz" course? And how do you teach them when to stop/change?
If we're able to guess that right, I guess we can educate children better to have better grownups.
This reminds me of Henri Laborit's book entitled "Eloge de la fuite" (in praise of flight) which states that when faced with stress, we can respond with action, flight, or inaction. Unlike the other two responses, inaction is toxic to the body. Maybe giving up corresponds to flight. I didn't read the article.
"fuite" is french which means to escape, to flee. Flight is only in context of planes or flying transportation.
As for the sense of it, you're right, it's either do something, go away, or do nothing.
Since my mother tongue is french, I guess I didn't choose the proper english word. In the context of an attack we sometimes see the "fight or flight" response. But I don't know what is the best term to translate "fuite" in this context.
I've cost myself quite a bit over my lifetime by quitting work I disliked for pick-a-reason without a plan to replace the income. I wish you the best in your search for a new revenue stream.
I stopped working and then I ran out of money. For me, a toxic job is better than not having a place to live. You can learn to cope with toxic (whatever that even means), and you can't manifest yourself a place to live.
I realize now what total bogus nonsense standups are. You get asked the same pish everyday and nobody listens to what you say. Ten different ways to track things for different audiences. I learned to just ignore all instruction given in these meetings and when board to talk non-stop to consume time and have them quickly move to others. A waste of space. Sack all the PMs and interfering managers who depend on them.
$1000/mo? Pff, that is luxury. Live on the streets, dumpster dive, forage and hunt for food, eat every other day, and you can get that down to $0. If you really need income you can take up sex work. $1000/mo, imagine!
I hope you get there. Depriving most workers of the ability to step away is, it seems, a purposeful feature. But you can get lucky, and I hope you will.
Similar boat, but I'm finally at the point where I think I can just walk out. Just stay on the job hunt and you can get there. I went from musician living on the cash in my pocket with 4 roommates to $110k in 10 years. You'll have to job hop, you'll have to grind some self-learning, but you can do it.
With the energy you're putting out sounds like you might need a new job. It's always the people in shitty jobs saying things like this. Figure out where the pain points in your life are that are making you so bitter and try to fix them.
Modern upbringing of children is full of nonsense forced by business and political goals. Rhymes that go "rain, rain go away" etc. Values that prioritize and reward sales skills, TV shows that show telling lies and pretending is acceptable and fun, weirdness is desirable etc. Importance of presentation over core content and so on.
We trained our mind to ignore and forget all animal instincts, body signals and wisdom acquired through ages.
Of course, ancient battle wisdom from the East tells you how to approach issues - saama, daana, bhedha, danda - that is - make friends, negotiate, divide and rule, use force. At any point, if things look infeasible, retreat and avoid. Pure common sense.
> Modern upbringing of children is full of nonsense forced by business and political goals. Rhymes that go "rain, rain go away" etc.
I don't understand what you mean by "rain, rain go away" in the context of modern upbringing of children. I know of the nursery rhyme with that line, but that's at least 350 years old.
> Of course, ancient battle wisdom from the East tells you how to approach issues - saama, daana, bhedha, danda - that is - make friends, negotiate, divide and rule, use force.
That's probably something you learn in India. In the West that'd be Machiavelli (and countless Roman/Greek philopsophers/generals, etc), for whoever went to school.
Anyway, all this is somehow unrelated to the article.
The main issue is that people nowadays have somehow internalized a weird "alpha male, never give up, don't cry, just shut up an resist, impossible is nothing" mindset. The issue is that many parents don't want to create "weak" grownups, with the side effects of creating potentially sick ones, who will grow and will have kids and "won't repeat the same mistakes as my parents".
In my experience the smartest and possibly most successful (not rich, but successful in terms of satisfied/happy/in a good state financially) people are the ones that know when to change course. Finding the sweet spot (the "when") is just pure talent. This is extremely difficult for a parent to understand: when to jump in and tell your kids "it's OK, do something else" without shame.
> people nowadays have somehow internalized a weird "alpha male, never give up, don't cry, just shut up an resist
I don't know what counts as "nowadays" but this male image has been promoted for a really long time. "Big boys don't cry" and "strong men don't take no for an answer" have been a thing for centuries. Stoicism was centered around emotional self-control more than 2000 years ago.
This survived for so long because we used to live in societies that were very patriarchal. So men knew their role and it was also at the top of the pyramid, all in a precarious equilibrium from a mental health perspective.
What happened nowadays is that society is less patriarchal. Men are no longer at the top of the pyramid, they no longer have a clearly defined societal role, but they still carry some of the old remnants because occasionally that's the expected of them and that's still how many boys are educated. The modern man is locked into a world where his education and emotional toolset are inadequate. They are raised to lock their feelings like an "alpha" but no longer have an outlet for anything because the alpha role in society started evaporating or shifting away from them.
It's a mental health crisis that will overflow sooner or later and it won't be good for anyone around it when it happens.
This is the exact opposite of what Stoicism teaches. It's all about figuring out as early as possible when you're aiming for an "impossible goal" and should dismiss that goal as something that you really have no control over. As for the emotional control part, the real goal is not to let your emotions affect your behavior in dysfunctional ways. That's why the main focus was not in fact "big boys don't cry", it was "big boys don't get angry/freak out/throw temper tantrums, EVER". Because that kind of uncontrolled anger is really bad for you and those around you.
Social media established a hustle culture in young men, cost of living forces people to work without taking vacation. The modern trend is 72 hour weeks in Silicon Valley corporations. Houses are speculation objects rather than affordable homes for families. In this society you have to teach children early on about how money works and how to keep jobs or you'll find them in a vicious cycle of trying to afford life. Giving up simply is not an option for many people anymore.
First lesson of life should be to show empathy towards other living beings.
If the first lesson in life is "you work to buy your bread" and "nobody will ever give you something for free" you'll end up in a world filled with egoistical maniacs. Which unfortunately is where we are at the moment.
Your second lesson is not even true considering I'd have unconditional love for my children/wife. Altruistic love in the form of give for the sake of giving, not give for the sake of receiving.
People forget that we are strong together. Working together is actually the only way humanity got where its at until some maniacs invented slavery.
I don't believe in "giving up" but I do believe in picking battles and leveraging higher order effects. A short term retreat to win a long term war. Walking away can be the best strategic option.
For example, if you find yourself in strong disagreement with the current leadership at your company, instead of having cataclysmic battles every day on Teams, you could simply hand in your resignation letter and walk away while the boat is still afloat. Keep your chin up and firmly depart with grace.
Short term, this looks exactly like giving up. Long term, it can surface the foundation of your arguments and force those higher up the chain (investors) to potentially come back to you and your arguments in the future (assuming you were actually right).
I'm living this one right now. It's surreal watching people who attempted to game of thrones me ~every day get perp walked. I wouldn't say I enjoy this because it would have been better if we had figured out a way to work together. It definitely wasn't a skill problem on anyone's part.
It is often best to use your opponent's momentum and energy against them. If the problem you are dealing with is other people, giving up is a reasonable default. If the problem is some challenging machine learning algorithm or other personal project I think you should be more cautious about walking away. This can turn into a bad habit.
The fewer chefs you have in the kitchen, the easier it is to assign blame and figure out what the real issues are. You can become part of that refining process if you have the contingencies to endure this job market.
The author of the article obviously didn't read the paper.
The paper's finding focuses on goal adjustment/flexibility being a functional response when encountering difficulty meeting a goal. Disengagement had correlations with impairment. Which probably tracks most people's life experience.
| This interpretation aligns with our finding that dispositional flex-
ibility, rather than more proximal disengagement or reengagement,
more strongly predicts functioning. Notably, we observed a positive
association between disengagement and impairment. Although this
could reflect a ‘dark side’ of disengagement—where letting go of goals
offers short-term relief but risks longer-term purposelessness and
dysfunction11—this pattern was not evident in longitudinal or experi-
mental studies. An alternative explanation is that the association is
bidirectional, with impairment potentially prompting disengagement
as a reactive strategy. Given these complexities, we advice caution in
interpreting this finding and highlight the need for further research.
True, but it's like with needles for some people. Even if you know that pain is just quick and harmless, your brain will act like you're in live danger.
In SW development the bar is constantly being set extra high expecting people to meet it constantly if they meet it once. Maybe some random unachievable internal date for some pointless goal for a back slap and a feel good headpat. Yeah, no. You will fail sooner or later as the denizens of management and PM-topia expect that is the norm. Better to relax and let every date be missed and tell them life's a bitch.
In most trading advice, cutting loses as soon as possible and as emotionlessly as possible is emphasised heavily. It's also physiologically one of the hardest parts for people to do consistently.
I used to think David Bazan's "Winners Never Quit" was a little over the top, but with some modern "grindset" advocates, I feel like it's becoming less so.
i spend a lot of time looking at companies to buy for the company I work at. A decent number of them are in situations where they aren't doing well and the founders have had a very difficult 10 or so years and you can see the pain. They should have given up 8 years ago in most cases.
>According to a review of more than 230 studies recently published in the journal Nature Human Behaviour, adjusting our goals in response to stress or challenges, rather than grinding on, is often “a more appropriate and beneficial response.”
That is also what people who persist on the path of their goal do. And that's not giving up, as the title claims.
You shouldn’t be blinded by survivorship bias either. Some of the best decisions I’ve made is quit my startup or company when I see the writing on the wall that this is not salvageable by my sacrifices
> The scientists also analyzed the impacts of these decisions. Giving up on goals was significantly linked to reduced stress, anxiety, and depression, for instance.
This seems to be a correlation, not a causation. There are many studies that show Stress, Anxiety, and Depression are prevalent in people who are smarter than the average, due to factors such as heightened self-expectations, rumination on negative experiences, and awareness of negative aspects of the world.
People who are smarter are more driven, which is how they develop their cognitive abilities. Giving up doesn't cause less anxiety, these people have less anxiety because they don't have the faculty to be affected by it.
> People who are smarter are more driven, which is how they develop their cognitive abilities. Giving up doesn't cause less anxiety, these people have less anxiety because they don't have the faculty to be affected by it.
Ah, the old “I’m anxious therefore I’m smart, they’re not therefore they’re stupid”. Lol, get your head out of your ass.
One should become aware of one’s deluded notion in which one thinks that ‘I belong to these objects of the world and my life depends upon them. I cannot live without them and they cannot exist without me, either.’ Then by profound
enquiry, one contemplates ‘I do not belong to these objects, nor do these objects belong to me’. Thus abandoning the ego-sense through intense contemplation, one should playfully engage oneself in the actions that happen naturally, but with the heart and mind ever cool and tranquil. Such an abandonment of the ego-sense and the conditioning is known as the contemplative egolessness.
-- from "Vasistha's Yoga" translated by Swami Venkatesananda.
Any study involving so called meta-analyses is not worth reading on the basis of some scientific evidence, just call it a hot take and leave it at that. It might still be an interesting hot take, not to say this is or is not.
This analysis is interesting, but I think there’s a small self-reference problem hidden in it: what exactly counts as an “impossible goal,” and who gets to decide that?
It’s obviously true that some people chase almost “fantasy-level” ambitions. But for most of us, the reason we keep going is that, somewhere in the background, we still believe our goals are possible, possible enough to justify the time, effort, and even psychological pain. If some external standard comes along and declares “this is impossible, you should give up,” that can reduce stress in the short term, but it may also plant a long-term regret that keeps growing with age.
Looking back on my own life, the goals I abandoned for internal reasons (“this no longer fits who I am / I don’t want to pay this price anymore”) are the ones I can live with. I learned from those failures and even feel a bit stronger because of them. The painful ones are the goals I dropped mainly because someone else convinced me they were impossible. Those still feel like open loops.
So maybe the more useful takeaway isn’t “giving up is good,” but: keep reassessing your goals realistically as you grow. If, after a sober look at your skills and constraints, you still feel a goal is worth the cost, then commit and try. At least when you’re old and sitting in a chair somewhere, you’ll be less haunted by “I never even gave it a shot.”
> So maybe the more useful takeaway isn’t “giving up is good,” but: keep reassessing your goals realistically as you grow.
This is ultimately what the article is talking about. It's not about giving up on your ultimate goal, it's about giving up on your current approach and finding other ways to progress towards your goal.
This is what I got from it. It’s pretty much synonymous with how I approach things. I wouldn’t call it “giving up,” rather than “reviewing and adapting.”
Here’s a demotivational poster that comes to mind: https://despair.com/cdn/shop/files/stupidity.jpg
I like your advice. It's like setting some metrics on your own progress and happiness level.
On the other hand, sometimes without pushing, you won't be able to fully enjoy something "later".
Stupid example: learning piano or guitar. Which metrics would you use?
In addition, here the issue is also about children, not just grownups: when to stop paying for their "xyz" course? And how do you teach them when to stop/change?
If we're able to guess that right, I guess we can educate children better to have better grownups.
This reminds me of Henri Laborit's book entitled "Eloge de la fuite" (in praise of flight) which states that when faced with stress, we can respond with action, flight, or inaction. Unlike the other two responses, inaction is toxic to the body. Maybe giving up corresponds to flight. I didn't read the article.
"fuite" is french which means to escape, to flee. Flight is only in context of planes or flying transportation. As for the sense of it, you're right, it's either do something, go away, or do nothing.
Since my mother tongue is french, I guess I didn't choose the proper english word. In the context of an attack we sometimes see the "fight or flight" response. But I don't know what is the best term to translate "fuite" in this context.
What distinction do you draw between “flight” and “fleeing”? To me they are synonyms.
From Cambridge.org:
> (an act or example of) escape, running away, or avoiding something: > They lost all their possessions during their flight from the invading army.
I was merely making the distinction for those non-english natives people like me who tilted their head not getting it at first :D
I think idioms that are synonyms of close concepts must be the hardest to learn in a second language. Can you trade any French examples?
The usage is a bit archaic, but that's another meaning of flight.
flight [flahyt]
noun an act or instance of fleeing or running away; hasty departure.
I quit my job 2 months ago ago Best thing I have ever done. Only now I realize how toxic and unrealistic the projects I have done where
Walked away from money and (project) name recognition for no commute and no extra hours. Best decision of my life.
I've cost myself quite a bit over my lifetime by quitting work I disliked for pick-a-reason without a plan to replace the income. I wish you the best in your search for a new revenue stream.
They quit their jobs 2 months ago and felt great . But I think it would be more accurate if they reflect after two years
If they felt great after two months, they’ll most likely feel amazing in two years.
At one point I ran out of money and ended up homeless. Would not recommend.
Did you end up homelessness because you’ve left toxic job and felt great after two months of not working there?
I stopped working and then I ran out of money. For me, a toxic job is better than not having a place to live. You can learn to cope with toxic (whatever that even means), and you can't manifest yourself a place to live.
And they might find a better job and make twice as much money while being happier. You never know.
I quit my job a little over a year ago and it's been the best year of my life. Not sure if I'll ever be able to go back to daily stand up meetings.
I realize now what total bogus nonsense standups are. You get asked the same pish everyday and nobody listens to what you say. Ten different ways to track things for different audiences. I learned to just ignore all instruction given in these meetings and when board to talk non-stop to consume time and have them quickly move to others. A waste of space. Sack all the PMs and interfering managers who depend on them.
Woooooooow good for you.
Must be nice to have quitting money.
I’ve never once been able to afford being able to quit a job, and I’m like, closing in on 40 now.
You just need to limit your expenses more.
It’s possible to live on $1000/month in the USA if you have a shared bedroom, dine-in, and skip medical insurance.
The "just stop eating avocado toast" advice is neither helpful nor thoughtful, friend.
That’s not “just stop eating avocado toast” advice. It’s advice to cut extremely high expenses.
Avocado toast advice is dumb because it’s an expense that doesn’t move the needle.
$1000/mo? Pff, that is luxury. Live on the streets, dumpster dive, forage and hunt for food, eat every other day, and you can get that down to $0. If you really need income you can take up sex work. $1000/mo, imagine!
I hope you get there. Depriving most workers of the ability to step away is, it seems, a purposeful feature. But you can get lucky, and I hope you will.
Similar boat, but I'm finally at the point where I think I can just walk out. Just stay on the job hunt and you can get there. I went from musician living on the cash in my pocket with 4 roommates to $110k in 10 years. You'll have to job hop, you'll have to grind some self-learning, but you can do it.
Come back when you gonna be out gf money AND out of job. It's delusion to say that being jobless is any beneficial on the long run
Where is it written "I finally don't have a job, I am so free!!!!" ?
With the energy you're putting out sounds like you might need a new job. It's always the people in shitty jobs saying things like this. Figure out where the pain points in your life are that are making you so bitter and try to fix them.
Why so mad bro?
Modern upbringing of children is full of nonsense forced by business and political goals. Rhymes that go "rain, rain go away" etc. Values that prioritize and reward sales skills, TV shows that show telling lies and pretending is acceptable and fun, weirdness is desirable etc. Importance of presentation over core content and so on.
We trained our mind to ignore and forget all animal instincts, body signals and wisdom acquired through ages.
Of course, ancient battle wisdom from the East tells you how to approach issues - saama, daana, bhedha, danda - that is - make friends, negotiate, divide and rule, use force. At any point, if things look infeasible, retreat and avoid. Pure common sense.
> Modern upbringing of children is full of nonsense forced by business and political goals. Rhymes that go "rain, rain go away" etc.
I don't understand what you mean by "rain, rain go away" in the context of modern upbringing of children. I know of the nursery rhyme with that line, but that's at least 350 years old.
> Of course, ancient battle wisdom from the East tells you how to approach issues - saama, daana, bhedha, danda - that is - make friends, negotiate, divide and rule, use force.
That's probably something you learn in India. In the West that'd be Machiavelli (and countless Roman/Greek philopsophers/generals, etc), for whoever went to school.
Anyway, all this is somehow unrelated to the article.
The main issue is that people nowadays have somehow internalized a weird "alpha male, never give up, don't cry, just shut up an resist, impossible is nothing" mindset. The issue is that many parents don't want to create "weak" grownups, with the side effects of creating potentially sick ones, who will grow and will have kids and "won't repeat the same mistakes as my parents".
In my experience the smartest and possibly most successful (not rich, but successful in terms of satisfied/happy/in a good state financially) people are the ones that know when to change course. Finding the sweet spot (the "when") is just pure talent. This is extremely difficult for a parent to understand: when to jump in and tell your kids "it's OK, do something else" without shame.
> people nowadays have somehow internalized a weird "alpha male, never give up, don't cry, just shut up an resist
I don't know what counts as "nowadays" but this male image has been promoted for a really long time. "Big boys don't cry" and "strong men don't take no for an answer" have been a thing for centuries. Stoicism was centered around emotional self-control more than 2000 years ago.
This survived for so long because we used to live in societies that were very patriarchal. So men knew their role and it was also at the top of the pyramid, all in a precarious equilibrium from a mental health perspective.
What happened nowadays is that society is less patriarchal. Men are no longer at the top of the pyramid, they no longer have a clearly defined societal role, but they still carry some of the old remnants because occasionally that's the expected of them and that's still how many boys are educated. The modern man is locked into a world where his education and emotional toolset are inadequate. They are raised to lock their feelings like an "alpha" but no longer have an outlet for anything because the alpha role in society started evaporating or shifting away from them.
It's a mental health crisis that will overflow sooner or later and it won't be good for anyone around it when it happens.
> "strong men don't take no for an answer"
This is the exact opposite of what Stoicism teaches. It's all about figuring out as early as possible when you're aiming for an "impossible goal" and should dismiss that goal as something that you really have no control over. As for the emotional control part, the real goal is not to let your emotions affect your behavior in dysfunctional ways. That's why the main focus was not in fact "big boys don't cry", it was "big boys don't get angry/freak out/throw temper tantrums, EVER". Because that kind of uncontrolled anger is really bad for you and those around you.
Social media established a hustle culture in young men, cost of living forces people to work without taking vacation. The modern trend is 72 hour weeks in Silicon Valley corporations. Houses are speculation objects rather than affordable homes for families. In this society you have to teach children early on about how money works and how to keep jobs or you'll find them in a vicious cycle of trying to afford life. Giving up simply is not an option for many people anymore.
> In this society you have to teach children early on about how money works
In this society? When and where was it ever different?
First lesson of life should be "you work to buy your bread" followed by "nobody will ever give you something for free".
First lesson of life should be to show empathy towards other living beings.
If the first lesson in life is "you work to buy your bread" and "nobody will ever give you something for free" you'll end up in a world filled with egoistical maniacs. Which unfortunately is where we are at the moment.
Your second lesson is not even true considering I'd have unconditional love for my children/wife. Altruistic love in the form of give for the sake of giving, not give for the sake of receiving.
People forget that we are strong together. Working together is actually the only way humanity got where its at until some maniacs invented slavery.
I don't believe in "giving up" but I do believe in picking battles and leveraging higher order effects. A short term retreat to win a long term war. Walking away can be the best strategic option.
For example, if you find yourself in strong disagreement with the current leadership at your company, instead of having cataclysmic battles every day on Teams, you could simply hand in your resignation letter and walk away while the boat is still afloat. Keep your chin up and firmly depart with grace.
Short term, this looks exactly like giving up. Long term, it can surface the foundation of your arguments and force those higher up the chain (investors) to potentially come back to you and your arguments in the future (assuming you were actually right).
I'm living this one right now. It's surreal watching people who attempted to game of thrones me ~every day get perp walked. I wouldn't say I enjoy this because it would have been better if we had figured out a way to work together. It definitely wasn't a skill problem on anyone's part.
It is often best to use your opponent's momentum and energy against them. If the problem you are dealing with is other people, giving up is a reasonable default. If the problem is some challenging machine learning algorithm or other personal project I think you should be more cautious about walking away. This can turn into a bad habit.
The fewer chefs you have in the kitchen, the easier it is to assign blame and figure out what the real issues are. You can become part of that refining process if you have the contingencies to endure this job market.
That’s still giving up. Just a fancy way of saying it. There’s nothing wrong with giving up.
The author of the article obviously didn't read the paper.
The paper's finding focuses on goal adjustment/flexibility being a functional response when encountering difficulty meeting a goal. Disengagement had correlations with impairment. Which probably tracks most people's life experience.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41562-025-02312-4
| This interpretation aligns with our finding that dispositional flex- ibility, rather than more proximal disengagement or reengagement, more strongly predicts functioning. Notably, we observed a positive association between disengagement and impairment. Although this could reflect a ‘dark side’ of disengagement—where letting go of goals offers short-term relief but risks longer-term purposelessness and dysfunction11—this pattern was not evident in longitudinal or experi- mental studies. An alternative explanation is that the association is bidirectional, with impairment potentially prompting disengagement as a reactive strategy. Given these complexities, we advice caution in interpreting this finding and highlight the need for further research.
This piece is missing something important: Pain of letting go. Especially if you're sensitive to pain, you will be sensitive of letting go.
That pain disappears really quickly in many cases...
True, but it's like with needles for some people. Even if you know that pain is just quick and harmless, your brain will act like you're in live danger.
'When' does one give up? That is the question that needs an answer.
Constantly assess the cost and benefit for future scenarios. Give up when the cost goes too high and beats your risk appetite.
In SW development the bar is constantly being set extra high expecting people to meet it constantly if they meet it once. Maybe some random unachievable internal date for some pointless goal for a back slap and a feel good headpat. Yeah, no. You will fail sooner or later as the denizens of management and PM-topia expect that is the norm. Better to relax and let every date be missed and tell them life's a bitch.
When you have enough money so you don’t have to work anymore. For most that’s never unfortunately.
ask chatGPT
I just read an article on this subject last week and thought this was going to be a republication on a nautilus but it’s different authors and different stories - https://www.newscientist.com/article/2501420-why-giving-up-o...
The nautilus story uses one meta study and the New Scientist has many individual citations with some quotes from scientists.
In most trading advice, cutting loses as soon as possible and as emotionlessly as possible is emphasised heavily. It's also physiologically one of the hardest parts for people to do consistently.
I think a better way to put this is the acknowledgement that resources are limited rather than giving up.
approval
I used to think David Bazan's "Winners Never Quit" was a little over the top, but with some modern "grindset" advocates, I feel like it's becoming less so.
Save your applause for the end of the road.
i spend a lot of time looking at companies to buy for the company I work at. A decent number of them are in situations where they aren't doing well and the founders have had a very difficult 10 or so years and you can see the pain. They should have given up 8 years ago in most cases.
It is indeed true that giving up can be the best choice.
>According to a review of more than 230 studies recently published in the journal Nature Human Behaviour, adjusting our goals in response to stress or challenges, rather than grinding on, is often “a more appropriate and beneficial response.”
That is also what people who persist on the path of their goal do. And that's not giving up, as the title claims.
I gave up my well paying full time job to start my own mammoth, own intuition. Been 5 months now and mammoth is ready for the ride.
From my own entrepreneurship scars, the real curse is never knowing when “enough is enough.”
If I’d pushed a little harder, would it have finally broken through?
Figma, Airbnb, and the other freak successes only exist because they didn’t quit.
You shouldn’t be blinded by survivorship bias either. Some of the best decisions I’ve made is quit my startup or company when I see the writing on the wall that this is not salvageable by my sacrifices
I made $60K since launching a year ago, after 4 years of full time development.
I feel delusional that I still want to keep working on it.
I guess we’ll see how year 2 post-launch goes.
People also waste entire decades because they didn't quit.
> The scientists also analyzed the impacts of these decisions. Giving up on goals was significantly linked to reduced stress, anxiety, and depression, for instance.
This seems to be a correlation, not a causation. There are many studies that show Stress, Anxiety, and Depression are prevalent in people who are smarter than the average, due to factors such as heightened self-expectations, rumination on negative experiences, and awareness of negative aspects of the world.
People who are smarter are more driven, which is how they develop their cognitive abilities. Giving up doesn't cause less anxiety, these people have less anxiety because they don't have the faculty to be affected by it.
This is a clever insight. You are doomed to a life of anxiety.
> People who are smarter are more driven, which is how they develop their cognitive abilities. Giving up doesn't cause less anxiety, these people have less anxiety because they don't have the faculty to be affected by it.
Ah, the old “I’m anxious therefore I’m smart, they’re not therefore they’re stupid”. Lol, get your head out of your ass.
Philosophy has had an answer all along;
One should become aware of one’s deluded notion in which one thinks that ‘I belong to these objects of the world and my life depends upon them. I cannot live without them and they cannot exist without me, either.’ Then by profound enquiry, one contemplates ‘I do not belong to these objects, nor do these objects belong to me’. Thus abandoning the ego-sense through intense contemplation, one should playfully engage oneself in the actions that happen naturally, but with the heart and mind ever cool and tranquil. Such an abandonment of the ego-sense and the conditioning is known as the contemplative egolessness.
-- from "Vasistha's Yoga" translated by Swami Venkatesananda.
Such ego and delusions are results of mind wandering outside of the context provided by the instincts and senses.
Any study involving so called meta-analyses is not worth reading on the basis of some scientific evidence, just call it a hot take and leave it at that. It might still be an interesting hot take, not to say this is or is not.