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The Secret to Making Your Dreams Come True is to Quit Sooner

7 min read2 days ago

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All illustrations and haiku comics by Jason McBride

I come from a long line of people who believed in enduring to the end. They were diehards (literally). Some of my ancestors froze to death while crossing the American plains on the way to what they believed to be the promised land in the 1850s.

Despite the signs of an early, ugly winter, they kept walking and pushing their handcart until some of them died. To them, enduring to the end was a religious requirement.

That level of commitment isn’t for me. I love quitting.

I frequently encourage my kids to quit, and I quit stuff all the time.

My father hated it when his children gave any signs of quitting. He felt quitting was a heinous character flaw. Walking away from something demonstrated a lack of integrity and a penchant for laziness.

He firmly believed in the cliché that winners never quit and quitters never win.

Dad loved to tell us that the only people who ever accomplished anything were the ones who persevered.

He had a point.

Before you can be successful in any art, craft, skill, business, or physical feat, you have to work hard over a long period of time, and enjoy at least a little luck…

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Best-selling author & poet-cartoonist. I write and draw about hope, creativity, and what it means to live a deeply human life.

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Published in Zenite

Alchemy Publications’ haven for thought-provoking stories from all walks of the human experience and knowledge.