On Giving Up

Psychoanalyst Adam Phillips writes,

“We tend to think of giving up as a lack of courage, as an improper or embarrassing orientation towards what is shameful and fearful. That is to say we tend to value, and even idealise, 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.” – Adam Phillips, London Review of Books