Every now and then we consider giving up. For me, it started as a young kid who struck out for the first time. I was convinced that my future in baseball and life was over forever. It wasn’t, despite decades of strike outs, mishaps, big mistakes, and sometimes just plain bad luck somehow I still am swinging the bat.
Life is full of times where we are convinced it is time to give up, but somehow or with the encouragement of a coach, parent, teacher, friend, or a complete stranger, we get back off the floor and move on. Sometimes we move on with a scar, a limp, or hard lesson learned. Sometimes we change directions, but we don’t give up. Then we get older, wiser, and it may be indeed be time to give up, but those decades of bouncing back won’t let us take the easy way out. Giving up is no longer an option.
I wonder if God ever thinks about giving up on the human race. We sure can make a mess of things. But I expect he/she sees the smile of a young child, the kindness and sacrifices of a caregiver, and the persistence of a senior who refuses to shut down and he/she decides his creation’s good points outweigh the bad by a long shot. He/she decides not to give up on us yet.
What do you think?
PS: Talk about coincidence. I just got my weekly newsletter from Maria Popova. Guess what the subject is: “Giving Up.” It is a worthy read. Here is what Adam Philips says about giving up:
“We tend to value, and even idealize, the idea of seeing things through, of finishing things rather than abandoning them. Giving up has to be justified in a way that completion does not; giving up doesn’t usually make us proud of ourselves; it is a falling short of our preferred selves… Giving up, in other words, is usually thought of as a failure rather than a way of succeeding at something else. It is worth wondering to whom we believe we have to justify ourselves when we are giving up, or when we are determinedly not giving up.”
More food for thought.
More funny – I would have pictured you as an Anna Kournikova type but at our age, just knowing anybody that plays tennis is good!
Bit young for me. How about Yvonne Goolagong?