Quit it
The secret to a long life is knowing when it's time to go
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"Winners never quit, and quitters never win," the old saying goes.
Bullshit.
I've quit plenty of things in my day, and they've all been winning decisions. For example, I quit a two-decade long career in the mainstream media. I had a job at CNN that many professionals in the business would give their eyeteeth for – and I ended up hating it. I came home every day and cried because every time I walked into the newsroom; another piece of my soul would die.
Don't get me wrong, I loved radio and television when I first began. I would have done my first few radio jobs for free; I loved it so much. Over the years, though, things changed. It was once understood that news operations would always be money-losers. They were a public service for TV and radio stations who would make their money on advertising and other income streams.
After the Reagan administration repealed the Fairness Doctrine that required broadcast networks to fulfill that public service, executives began to demand news operations become profit centers. That meant the news had to be sexier, more entertaining, leading it to move away from actual information and news reports and morph instead into infotainment and political punditry. Cable news completed the destruction by hiring only talking heads to fill time in between commercials. Fox News introduced the idea of bias into reporting and punditry and the fourth estate became nothing but a circus.
This was not what I had signed up for, so I took a giant pay cut to go work in academic public relations and never looked back. I quit, but I didn't lose anything. Instead, I regained my peace of mind and a lot of my sanity.
I also quit producing an internet magazine I founded in 1996 for LGBTQ+ Christians called Whosoever after 18 years. The magazine was the first of its kind online – or anywhere, for that matter. Readership was high and because of the magazine I was able to produce a book called Bulletproof Faith: A Spiritual Survival Guide for Gay and Lesbian Christians. The book would not have come into being if not for Whosoever. It evolved from an article in the magazine that became a workshop that I toured around LGBTQ+ conferences, both Christian and secular.
But things changed. My own faith evolved beyond a narrow Christian faith to embrace many forms of religion and metaphysical teachings. It felt dishonest to continue producing a Christian magazine.
So, I quit, but I didn't lose anything. Instead, I regained a sense of integrity and joy. Since then, my friend Rev. Paul Turner has revived Whosoever and has taken it in a more interfaith direction. Bless him!
Most recently, I quit as the spiritual director of Jubilee! Circle – a faith community I founded nearly 14 years ago in Columbia, SC. Like my early days in radio, it's a job I loved so much, I did it for free for little while until we had the means to give me a small salary. The life of the community took many twists and turns but even through the tough times, it fed my spirit and my soul … until it didn't.
COVID-19 changed a lot for a lot of people. Financially, Jubilee! Circle broke even in 2020 and for the next two years. However, like many faith communities, our attendance never recovered to pre-pandemic levels and giving dropped precipitously. We broke even in those last couple of years because we opened other income streams including renting our space and starting a music and performance listening room called "The Living Room."
I managed all of that and a weekday fulltime job. Burnout was inevitable. About a year or so ago, what was once a joy felt like a burden. I was no longer being spiritually fed. Instead, the whole experience felt soul-sucking, time-sucking, and spirit draining. I went through the motions for a while, but this year it became clear that it was too much, even after I handed off many of my responsibilities to others. So, I quit, but I didn't lose anything. Instead, I gained time to focus on other things that bring my heart and soul joy. I have started going back to open mic nights and singing my songs. In fact, the songwriting muse won't leave me alone. I've had trouble writing articles and sermons, but songs are easily flowing through me, which is feeding my soul.
Why aren't you quitting?
What keeps us from quitting when we obviously should? I will tell you what kept me hanging on in each of these three instances – a fear of what those around me would think. I mean, winners never quit, and quitters never win, right? We've had that idea pounded into us since birth. The pressure can be so great that we'll spend our whole lives doing something we hate because we think we'll "win" if we keep at it. Win what? More misery?
So often, these are the thoughts that keep us doing things we should quit:
"They will hate me."
"They will be disappointed in me."
"They will think I'm a loser."
"They will abandon me."
All these things, and more, will happen. Quit anyway.
Quit anything that sucks the life out of you, that sucks your time and energy, that sucks your spirit and drains your soul. Don't stay just because it took you a long time to get to this place of burnout. If it's causing you pain and misery, quit it. Quit now.
Here's the simple fact of the matter – some things in our lives are meant to last for a season, not for our entire lives. I quit using a bottle when I could eat solid food. I quit using training wheels when I learned to ride a bike without them. I quit crawling when I learned to walk. We quit things all the time and it doesn't make us losers. If we're doing this life right, we change and grow over time and what we're doing now, in this version of ourselves, may not fit the future version of who we become. We should be ever evolving, and with evolution comes change – and quitting the old ways of doing and being.
How do you know it's time to change? When what you're doing no longer feeds you. When what you're doing no longer brings you joy. When what you're doing becomes soul and joy killing.
You'll know it's time to quit when things begin to unravel and fall apart. Each time I quit, things were falling apart – journalism as a career with integrity, a magazine with a premise my faith could no longer support, a spiritual community that became about chasing the budget over transforming lives.
We're taught to "keep it together" to not let things fall apart, but what if things are supposed to fall apart? What if we're doing more harm to ourselves and others by trying to "keep it together"? What if sometimes we have to let a good thing die to see the better thing that's trying to move us forward into a more expanded consciousness? What if quitters are really the true winners?
Yes, you can have it all – if you quit
The notion that we should pick one thing to do, one person to be with, or one way of believing or being in the world when we're kids and never waver from that path is a trick of the ego. Our egoic society asks us as kids what we want to be when we grow up – before we even know who we truly are – and then tears us down when we veer from that path.
I've always known, since childhood, that I wanted to be a writer. In my small, childlike mind, that meant writing books. That's all I thought writers did. I wrote a book, and it was a dream come true for me. Then, there was pressure to write another book, but here's the thing: Bulletproof Faith had to be written. I was driven to write it. I could do nothing BUT write it. I haven't felt that way since. Maybe I only have one book in me. Society says losers write just one book, but to my 6-year-old self, I'm an amazing hero – a published author! I'll take that kid's joy over society's definition of success any day.
Over time, though, I learned that making a living writing – heck, even writing for the joy of it – opened many avenues for me. I wrote news, I wrote articles, I wrote blog posts, I wrote sermons, I wrote a book, I wrote songs! I am what I always dreamed I would be. I am a writer, but it takes so many forms that I couldn't even imagine as a kid. I never would have realized that if I hadn't quit thinking about writing as just one thing.
The world will tell you to "follow your bliss," but the reason it gives you is that if you "follow your bliss" you'll reap the benefits of fame and fortune. Well, I've followed my bliss for 58 years and have earned neither. Yes, please, follow your bliss, but don't expect it to bring worldly success. That's not its purpose. The purpose of bliss is to move you into an expanded consciousness. Of course, some people get both – Oprah, Eckhart Tolle, Wayne Dyer, even Taylor Swift – many have followed their bliss to fame and fortune and that's wonderful. We need to hear them and learn from them, but that doesn't mean our path is the same as theirs.
I may toil in obscurity for the rest of my days, and that's just fine. I don't need to monetize my bliss. I need to enjoy it, to see it for what it is – my path to awakening. If others take notice and want to support me, great. If not, great.
Following my bliss isn't about building a following. We're not here to get an audience, we're here to awaken. Our creativity, our contribution to the world, is simple. We follow our bliss, so we become a purveyor of bliss in every moment of our lives – not just when we're on the stage or making the TikTok video. We're bliss in line at the grocery store. We're bliss waiting at the DMV and in the dentist's chair. We're bliss to our spouse, our friends, to strangers, and those we see as enemies.
One final thing to quit
A few months ago, out on my daily walk with my dog, Pax, I heard a voice in my head say very clearly, "Your audience isn't on Facebook." I have pondered this ever since and my ego kept saying, "Well, maybe they're on TikTok or X or Instagram …" None of those answers felt right so I just kept listening. The answer came to me just the other day when I heard another voice speak while I was on the walk. It said, "David danced before the Lord."
David knew his audience. He didn't dance before the people. He danced before the only audience that matters – the Holy, the Divine, the Universe. We dance for no one else in this world but our Creator. If others take notice, cool, but your audience is the vastness that makes up everything – including you.
Your audience is not on Facebook or any other social media. Your audience is within – it is that which created us all. We are the audience. We are the performers. We are the set builders. We are the ticket takers, the producers, the accountants, the awarding societies. We dance before each other in a performance of pure Love and joy.
This is what we should never quit doing. The true winners never quit performing their dance, their song, their art of Love and joy before the only audience that matters – the Divine that lives within all of us. Let everything else in this world fall apart until your only audience is the one within who delights in your artistry of Love and joy.
That's the only form of winning that matters.
Music for the Journey:
“Let a Good Thing Die” — Bruno Major
“If it's keeping you from sleeping
Wipe the tear from your eye
'Cause sometimes it's time to let a good thing die”
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About the Motley Mystic:
The Motley Mystic is an online community for people who have realized that the truth speaks with many voices. There is no one religion, philosophy, institution, or dogma that captures the whole Truth and nothing but the Truth. No one needs to swear allegiance to one line of thought or belief to discern Truth, because Love is the only thing that’s real. That’s what we explore at the Motley Mystic - all the tools and strategies we need to remove our barriers to Love and live fully as our true Divine Self.
Candace Chellew is the founder of Motley Mystic as well as Jubilee! Circle, an interfaith spiritual community in Columbia, S.C. She is also the author of Bulletproof Faith: A Spiritual Survival Guide for Gay and Lesbian Christians published in 2008 by Jossey-Bass and the founder and senior editor emeritus of Whosoever: An Online Magazine for LGBTQ People of Faith. She is also a musician and avid animal lover.
Damn this is good! Well-written, sharp--kudos!
Excellent advice via your experience. Thanks so much.