At the beginning of the semester, our class tried to run without a plan. After a few weeks, we created a unit-based plan, one requiring group study the same main topic (women’s rights, for example) with individual focuses. However, that plan was more of a placeholder than a contribution to our learning community. Although I feel a sense of failure when I quit anything, I wholeheartedly supported abandoning the unit-based plan. The real learning happened once we implemented the discussion-based model; we each chose an individual topic to discuss as a group. From that point forward, I felt more engaged with my peers and my personal goals, but my engagement grew more once I abandoned my own plan.
With that individualized learning plan, it felt necessary to create a personal syllabus and set goals. My original plan deeply challenged involvement in and out of the classroom, and I feared that it demanded too much. I felt overwhelmed, but I did not want to quit. At the time, quitting seemed like failure, but I was failing myself by standing by a plan I knew I could not successfully complete. Luckily, once I realized the benefits of the new class layout—the benefits of quitting what we had started to start something with better goals—I felt comfortable revising my syllabus. The revised syllabus appeared more manageable; I knew I could complete each outlined step.
After revisions, I dove into my new plan. I quickly focused on research, and I wrote the beginning of my semester-long project. At this point, I felt a sense of accomplishment by checking off tasks on my syllabus. At the same time, I realized that almost three months had passed without much work on my semester-long project. I felt overwhelmed again, but I kept working on the project. Then I realized I was not accomplishing much. Feeling overwhelmed and fearing incompletion (according to my syllabus), I stopped working on my project for about a week. Then I remembered how empowered I felt abandoning what didn’t work before. So I did it again.
Although I did not completely abandon my second syllabus, I did decide to pursue a goal not listed originally or in revisions: do my best. Yes, it seems simple. It’s a phrase children are taught to say to themselves. But who says it can’t work for adults, too? I say it does. Once I focused on completing every task I started to the best of my abilities rather than checking a list to cross tasks off, I found my portfolio building itself. I found a pencil scrawling words across 12 pages a night, only to hear a keyboard typing them onto a screen soon after. I found success by redefining it. Before this class, I saw success as a path: I would take the necessary steps and cross them off my checklist and reach the end. That is not success. That is an emotionless path leading to an empty list—to emptiness.
After reaching that conclusion, I stepped away from that path into a place I knew nothing about, yet felt sure of finding success. I did. I found that leaving comfortability—in the sense of comfortability meaning what has always been done—only allows for growth. I found that quitting something unfulfilling is not only the end of something bad, but also the beginning of the great pursuit of better possibilities. Abandoning the original and revised plans to do my best allowed for far more success. From this point forward, I will not fear the negative connotation of “quitting.” Instead, I will define my own life, including my own success.
