Sometimes you have to quit things. Just do not quit on you. I am not saying a man should never quit anything. I am saying he should never quit trying. There is a world of difference between the two, and confusing them has kept a lot of good men stuck in places that were slowly killing them.
You may have to quit a job. Leave someone toxic in the dust. Change direction in some dramatic way that scares the people around you. That is not failure. Sometimes that is survival, and it takes more courage than staying ever would.
What Football Gave Me, and What It Cost
I went to college on a football scholarship. Football was my first love, second team All State linebacker in high school, a scholarship to an NCAA Division II school in Kentucky. But far from my family and struggling academically, I started self medicating with alcohol what I would only later recognize as intense anxiety. I got a DUI at eighteen and went to jail. One night, under the influence, I punched out a window and badly cut my hand and wrist. My first semester GPA was a 0.5. You read that right.
That is not when I quit. The next semester I pulled a 3.5 and made it another year and a half, until my coping failures caught up with me again. So I left. And by quitting football, I may very well have saved my own life. That is not a dramatic line for effect. I believe it completely.
I Quit Some Things. I Never Quit Trying.
After about a year home getting myself straight, I served a two year mission in Australia. When I came back, I finished my degree in psychology, earned a master's, and went on to teach in a university graduate program for six years. I had to quit some things along the way. I never quit trying. And because I walked away from football, I won something far bigger. I found my true identity, which turned out to have nothing to do with my forty time or my bench press.
So if you have to quit an unhealthy situation in some corner of your life, do it, and do not let anyone shame you for it. Just do not quit on yourself. Keep grinding. Keep believing. You will win. I promise you that.