Why giving up might be a good thing

Everywhere you turn you see the words, don't give up, follow your dream, never give in, keep on fighting. What if the truth is the exact opposite? That in giving up you find your peace and discover an entirely different path?

It makes no sense to do what everyone else is doing and get nowhere. They may have success doing this thing or that thing, but if it doesn't work for you why keep beating your head against the wall? because the experts told me it will work, is one answer. Because if I do it long enough or the RIGHT way it's bound to work, is another. Because I don't know what else to do, is a common answer. You don't know what else to do because you haven't looked outside the box. There are many different ways to look at a problem and not all of them require you to follow the herd mentality.

But really, I mean REALLY letting go is very very difficult and requires a TON of courage. You don't know where the path will lead and not only that, you can't even find the place where the path begins! How to start? Where to start? You have to trust those who say they know how to play the game, don't you? You give them money and get into the boat with a whole lot of others. The boat is overcrowded and many of you on board will have to abandon ship to save yourselves. And the ones who remain may or may not make it to shore. The boat has a bad leak and the one in charge doesn't really know how to sail. But how could you have known this before you handed over your cash?

Ah, the freedom of being in your own boat with only yourself to blame if things go awry. You can set sail for that small green island in the distance, the one that keeps calling to you. But wait, you say--that island doesn't spell success--that island is isolated and who knows what lives there? Could be Monsters...

The problem is too many people on the water all heading for the same goal--can you tweak your goal a bit, not have to have the same one as everyone else? Maybe it isn't really the money you're after--maybe it's more about the feeling you get while you are engaged in the process. And we all know that fighting never gets us anywhere. We've seen it over and over.

In giving up you open a door. And behind that door could be something new and wonderful to be discovered. Another way. To never give up is to be stubborn and fixated, like a person who refuses to believe in the rain that hits him in the face. To repeat an old quote from the sixties and the title of a book--"Don't push the river, it flows by itself."