quit

I had a skype meeting at 8.45 am today. So I was telling Jispa to hurry up as I drop her to school. I told her I have a meeting and I was getting the car to zip. She looked at me and asked me what I was doing in jeans and a t shirt if I had a meeting. I told her that I have meetings every day and I don’t need to wear formals for all meetings. She understood and she was asking me why I bother wearing formals at all. Jeans are so comfortable. ‘shouldn’t you wear what you are wearing everyday rather than being who you are not’. Yup I agree with her completely. I can’t understand formal clothes. I find them so bloody irritating. People should wear what they want to wear. I had no real explanation on why we have formal clothes culture in office. Why should we force people to wear formals? People should wear what they wear regularly and what they work the best in. Formals are definitely not it.

I quit. I quit wearing formals. I can’t handle any more formals… please.

Fine… I am getting carried away. But I really want to quit wearing formals for good. I am inspired by the this quitting thing. I was listening to a podcast of a Freakonomics episode where they explain the upside of quitting. It’s quite interesting. They say that people normally gravitate towards an average happiness of 7 on 10. No matter how bad shit has hit you or how much you might have been luckily happy. Over a period of time – you hit a 7. So if you want to quit – great – do it. It doesn’t matter. You will hit a 7 in no time. It also talks about why you must quit something fast. If it’s not working for you then you must quit fatafat. It saves you so much time and effort.

I look at Jispa – now this is going to be severe – I hope Jispa you understand what I mean here. Jispa has been swimming for many years now. It has defined her and her identity. She defines herself as a swimmer. She has hit state level but has yet to break it into the nationals. She trains hard and long but – when I see her and I see the others – it’s there to see. I think that for now – this is her level. It would take an extraordinarily large amount of effort for her to break further in swimming. I would want her to quit and take up something else. Something other sport, some reading, some cycling or whatever else that catches her fancy. India does not have swimmers and a swimming culture nor the infrastructure. To break through I would have to send her abroad and across the world to learn more. Then she needs to forget studying or anything else. Too much to go nowhere… and most importantly she is giving up her childhood for this.

Kids can grow up and blame their parents that we did not push them enough. This is a double edged sword. Do I push them enough so that they don’t really love their childhood or should I push them so hard so that they achieve what they are meant to achieve. What to do is a mystery. But one thing we must teach them – which is the most difficult thing to do – is to quit. Quit when is not going for you. Quit when you don’t like it. Quit when you think its enough. Quit when you think that inspite of everything you may not make it. Quitting is a thing we don’t really like,. We have been taught to go for it, to push, to never see reality. The top industry titans carried along and refused to quit when everything was against them. They kept going. Tales of champions are filled with messages of don’t quit. When the going gets tough the tough get going. Whoever heard of when the going gets tough – take a reality check.

I wish Jispa quit swimming. I wish she spent that time reading, watching movies, roaming endlessly. I wish she picked up another sport, played some tennis with me or badminton. I wish she quit and started something else. She has achieved far more than what I dreamed of. She represents Mumbai for heavens sake! What more. She wants to hit the nationals once. Once – she says. Oh god. I hope it happens fast – for her. Then I hope she takes on something else, till she finds something she really enjoys – like swimming perhaps :)