When I was growing up, I tried a few incredibly challenging things. I faced real adversity and I went to my mother for advice. She told me that quitting was fine and that she would love me anyway. I cherish the love that she gave me. It positively shaped me and I hold on to memories where she expressed her love. However, I did take her words to heart and I became a quitter. I started failing in school and I would just give up on anything that revealed the slightest hint of difficulty, stress, strain, or hard work.
This is when it’s not ok to quit.
As I was growing up, I also had to quit being lazy. I had dreams and I wanted to see them become my reality. I now know that they happen in small steps every day when I get little objectives completed. I learned that laziness is just a lack of self-discipline. If one does not have the required self-discipline to do something when they don’t feel like doing it, they also do not have the self-discipline to achieve their highest potential. During my teen years, I learned how to make excuses for all my wrongdoings and failures. This lack of responsibility made it ok for me to not achieve anything for myself. Ultimately, making excuses was going to cost me all future success. I had to quit making excuses for myself. I also had to quit procrastinating. Whenever we want to do something in life, there will be no perfect time. Waiting for the perfect setup circumstances will lead to things not getting started. Period. Procrastination is the enemy of our dreams. In order who improve as a person, I had to quit being lazy, making excuses, and procrastinating.
Later on, in my twenties, I found myself in Chengdu, China. I got lost in life. I started drinking every day. When I say drinking, yes I am talking about alcohol. I am also talking about drinking bubbly beverages with high fructose corn syrup and the fatty oils from pork that was left in my rice bowl after each meal. At one point, I was also smoking shisha every day. I would wake up around 1 pm because I was not getting sleep. I would proceed to mixing a cocktail and prepping coffee-flavored shisha tobacco to smoke. That was my life. I was poisoning myself out of bad habit and entertainment. I had to quit if I wanted to live a longer life and reduce the pain that I would experience in my senior years. I had to bring my chaotic lifestyle to a full stop and make some changes. So I quit.
I have been sober and smoke-free for six years now. I gave up meat too. My family has a history of heart problems, diabetes, and strokes. I do not want to suffer by going down that road. I had to evaluate my habits. I had to determine which habits were healthy and productive and which habits were not. Once I figured out which habits were killing me (literally), I had to cut them out.
Terrance Thomas
