If you must play, decide on three things at the start: the rules of the game, the stakes, and the quitting time. (Chinese Proverbs)
So many things are being said about people who quit, and if you're a fan of quotes like me, you'll know that the majority of people who have gained worldwide reputation, wise or wicked, do not approve of quitting. But is quitting such a bad thing?
I had dinner tonight with a good friend. With her, I can talk about this kind of philosophical nonsense. We were discussing about what we do and at a point she said, "I'm so stubborn I can't quit things." Then she started talking about the time when she couldn't quit reading Dostoyevsky's The Idiot even though it was such an idiotic thing to do. She spent five months finishing that God-forsaken book, simply because once she starts something, she just has to see the end of it. And after a while she said that you have to be able to quit something, and if you can't, you must learn.
Now I always thought being persistent is a good thing. I believe that. And I'm not good at quitting either, although I'm not as stubborn as my dear friend, because I know how to put down a book as soon as I'm convinced that it's not going to make me any less stupid nor smart. But my mum raised and trained me to finish everything I do, and I always try to do it, although I can honestly say that sometimes when I take too much at a time, I'm forced to quit something. But I always look at it as being postponed, like my Spanish or Latin class, and normally the interest lays dormant.
But recently I've been thinking a lot about quitting doing what I love to do: my music camp. This is my fourth year, and things haven't changed much. There's always this plot going on to give me a hard time (and this year it was from people I thought highly of before, which were very, very disappointing), people have no respect over deadlines, the locals are reluctant to join and complaining about the price, and the lukewarm reception of music students in the city, it's just all so discouraging. It's really ironic. I'm trying to build music life in this city, but the people who live in it don't seem to want to grow. And I know that nothing will grow in here unless people are educated. But in this terribly placid music environment, what can I do if they don't want to be made better? Would God help those who do not help themselves?
But would it make me a failure if I quit, after all these years? Sam Haywood recently put a link to my website in his with a saying, "...this company tirelessly promotes classical music in Indonesia...". Isn't it sad? Sam wouldn't be proud of me if he reads this blog. But I can make a list of negative and positive things that will happen if I stop caring, and honestly, it wouldn't be my personal loss. In fact, I would have been able to keep my saving, I wouldn't have annual headache, and I could in time raise enough fund and present myself with a gap year that I badly need. So is it really necessary for me to be so damn persistent about it? Or am I simply being persistently foolish?
And that's one question I cannot answer right now. There's a quote saying, "trust in what you love, continue to do it, and it will take you where you need to go." I always believe this. And so I might still be doing this because I love it (and love is not a choice) and also because I have the audacity to hope that I will go somewhere, and I will not end up here, and I can continue to do this thing I love, only somewhere else. But like every other important things I decide in my life, I think I will rely on my instinct to tell myself when is a good time to quit, and if it should be a mistake, then it shall be my own, not anyone else's.
