Quitters win: What have you believed prior? -By Abiola Abass

Life is a beautiful array of complexities. That’s why truth, most often than not, can be subjective. An opinion can be true in 999 instances and prove woefully wrong in the 1000th. In philosophy, there are two concepts which stand at two extremes to each other: They are absolutism and relativism. While the former explains universal truth—truths that are relevant in all cases, and in all places—the latter expounds on truths that depend on perspectives and which can be rejected in peculiar instances.

While scientists and philosophers always try to observe elements in our physical world in order to discern theories, laws and principles of everything; it won’t go without mentioning that they sometimes return with conclusions that are relative rather than absolute.

Youths and adults alike, oftentimes, consume quotes and philosophical sayings as though they are divine and universally indisputable.

About three years ago, I was on a WhatsApp group where someone posted a list of maxims that need to be, sometimes, carefully disputed. The writer was wondering why would someone conclude that half a loaf is better than no bread and ‘always’ settle for half a loaf, even when such a person has the potential and ability to own a bakery and produce countless loaves. Settling for less on the altar of contentment, when you can strive more and achieve more, is a great disservice you can do to yourself. Also, people sometimes tend to stay put with the ‘what will be will be’ maxim without considering the fact that ‘what will be may never be if there is no enough effort to make it be’.

Shortly before coming up with this piece, I was thinking about Vince Lombardi’s quote: Winners never quit and quitters never win. I was wondering how much truth is there in this wise saying and how relative it is. Is it absolute? I kept thinking. About a number of people who may be currently suffering in silence because they believe unrepentantly that quitters never win. At the same time, I was thinking about a number of successful quitters whose stories I have read.

Then, while going through all of these thoughts, I was thinking about how best to scribe an admonition about this saying and help some people get a balanced interpretation of the quote and know when they can (and should) discard it. And a name raced to my mind. It is the name of a young man who quit medical school two weeks before final exams after studying in medical school for 10 years. He is Mansur Ismaila; I decided to have a discussion with him being a proud quitter who succeeded in the long run.

When quitters are quitting, they risk public judgement. And it’s normal. Some may judge them as failures while others may see them as confused fellows. Not knowing that it is completely normal to not have a clear image of one’s path in life at some stage. And whenever the path becomes clear, it only makes sense to start following the path judiciously.

In Mansur’s words, “Lombardi is not wrong. I understand and can relate to his context. But my scenario was different. I was struggling and labouring in the wrong ecosystem. My fish was swimming in the wrong river. Let me say it in Yoruba, mo n sha’ye alaye. So, what I did was cut my losses. Get out of the zone of defacto, irreparable failure. And move into my home zone, where I’m comfortable in my own skin. The rest, as they say, is history.”

Quitting or deciding to abandon an endeavour is a delicate decision. It shouldn’t be taken based on mere emotional hunches. If you need to unfollow any path, you need to ask yourself a lot of mind-exploring questions. Are you merely frustrated by some external factors that can be taken care of without quitting? Are you feeling frustrated because of your laziness? These and many more questions should be asked and decisively answered.

If quitters quit before answering these mind-exploring questions, they may ‘never’ win as Lombardi posited. And they may later regret their decision. A number of successful quitters I have come across don’t have this regret because they quit with caution and conviction.

In the case of students, there’s still this conflict of interest between children’s passion and parents’ decisions for their children. This act of deciding for the children, if not widely cautioned, may result in a rise in the number of emotionally traumatised youths, who may not have a better option than to quit eventually.

“I’d just like to appeal to parents. Please, stop playing God. You can guide your children to their careers, but you can’t decide their destinies. That’s God’s job, not yours. Let your children be whatever they want to be, in as much as it’s legal, moral and viable. There is no single pathway to success, spiritual or temporal. Let them choose their paths, for the good of us all,” Mansur advised.

In his interview with Folashade Adebayo and Sodiq Oyeleke published on www.punchng.com on January 17, 2017, he said, “I dropped out of medicine because I could not take it no more. It was killing me. it destroyed my cognitive acumen and turned me into a sad, depressed man; a perpetual failure. Essentially, I spent the 10 years studying medicine and discovering myself. The experience subconsciously prepared me for a new life of success in Mass Communication.”

There are many more stories of quitters like Mansur’s. Suyash Mehta quit medical school to become the first NBA referee of Indian origin, according to www.thehustle.com.

Quite worthy of mentioning: Stories like these are not limited to academic careers. There are a lot of life instances where quitting is not just good but the best thing to do. How many individuals out there are suffering in premarital/marital relationships that threaten their life and mental wellness?

For the sake of emphasis, quitting is not a corollary to losing. A beautiful example to think about is politics. Recently, Nigeria’s political atmosphere witnessed an unprecedented event in the primary election of the All Progressives Congress, in which seven aspirants stepped down (in our context here, quit in favour of Bola Tinubu). Judging by the well-known nature of Nigeria’s politics, no one would expect that those aspirants quit on their own accord without a beautiful promise of win-win aftermath.

So, it’s only logical to see them as quitters who won in their own ways.

Labouring in the wrong ecosystem, as Mansur puts it, is wrong. It is like intentionally rough handling and roughhousing your own mind. When you have become intentional that you need to quit an endeavour—rather than persisting in the wrong pursuit—the only best thing to do is quit the rat race to build your own lane to run your own race.

On a final note, it is important to mention that Lombardi was preaching resilience when he was saying ‘Winners never quit and quitters never win’. And now as accruable from this piece, we have realised that we need his advice but we now know that it only pays to be resilient on the right cause; a cause that tickles us and makes us happy.

• Abass writes from Akure and can be reached at abdulazeezabass@gmail.com