When I was younger, I used to be on the competitive swim team. I had a coach who was fairly young, I'd say in his 20s or 30s. And one day, during practice, he sat us all down and told us he was going to talk to us.

Of course, we were a crowd of seven to twelve years olds, so we were more than ready to listen. This coach was probably a role model to a lot of the younger kids.

So he proceeded to give us a speech that to this day, I will never forget.

As some background information, I'll tell you that there was a very good swimmer at that time on our team. Let's call her Sally She was an open water swimmer, and known as all coaches by one of the most promising young swimmers on our team.

So I'm paraphrasing here, but our coach began his speech with something along the lines of this:

"Everyone here wants to be like Sally, right? Well, you have to work as hard as Sally does, and if you want to be a winner, you really have to put your heart into what you're doing."

He was perfectly right in all aspects of this. Up to this point, I agree with everything my coach just said. And then he went on to say something like this.

"If you don't want to put your heart into swimming, then you can quit. But I want you to know that if you quit, it would make you a loser, because quitters never win."

Of course, people always say this. If you're studying for a test, don't quit, because quitters never win. If you're playing basketball for a scholarship, don't quit, because quitters never win. If you signed up for an art class that your mom had to pay good money for, don't quit, because quitters never win.

But with all of this said, I think at some point, we have to acknowledge the reality that sometimes, quitters do win. Because who's the real winner if you're stuck doing something you don't like and don't like simply because you don't want to be seen as a loser?

I'm not ashamed to admit that I quit swimming. I felt I wasn't very good at it, and it just wasn't fun for me anymore especially after I entered high school and had a lot of other stuff on my plate. But when I joined tennis later on, it gave me more of an opportunity to focus on doing more of the things I loved. Writing for example, and playing the piano, both of which I got better at. Besides that, I enjoyed tennis a lot more than swimming, and felt like I was getting better every time I practiced, unlike back when I swam.

Now, when I look back at the things I've done and subsequently stopped doing, like soccer, swimming, and gymnastics I can either say to myself "Wow. I've quit a lot of things" or "Wow. I've tried a lot of things."

And to be honest, I prefer looking at it the second way. I also prefer the saying "quit while you are ahead" to "quitters never win". As in, if you feel you have done good enough at something and are satisfied at where you are and don't feel like doing something anymore, it's okay to quit.

Why would we teach people that they have to keep doing things they don't like doing because they're a failure/loser otherwise?

Sometimes kids have to deal with the reality that they won't win something. No matter what you do, there will always be someone out there who is better than you. Instead of telling people they can win everything, we should tell them to pursue and work hard for the things they really want to win. That's what we should do instead of handing everyone half-hearted participation awards. People who have everything handed to them don't know how to deal with not winning.

In short, quitting things is not bad. Losing things is not the end of the world. It opens you up to different opportunities. Winning is not everything, as cliche as it may sound. Because you can go to a competition, get a good job, learn new things, make new friends, and have new experiences, and you don't have to "win" anything. People seem to like the stress the "quitting makes you a loser and winning makes you a winner" but the truth is that it's not as black and white as they make it out to be.