As humans, we again and again find ourselves dumping resources into lost causes: be they pointless wars, failed public policies, hopeless dating prospects, annoying friends, or dandelion-free lawns. I say take a stand (or actually, a seat in this case), and just quit.

Despite proclamations to the contrary from lame duck presidents, failure is an option, and often the most expedient one.

Tenth grade was the year that I learned the most important lesson of my life. I had somehow found myself on both the football and the wrestling teams despite a deep and profound hatred for the twin sports of football and wrestling. I don't think I'm alone in falling victim to peer/societal pressure during high school, but my participation in these sports (in particular the after-school practices) was making my life a living hell. In smoggy 100+ degree L.A. heat, the football coach would make the team run around the track until people literally started puking (with me often leading the trend), and the wrestling coach would force us to attend three-hour-plus practices which left us so worn-out that we inevitably lost the actual matches.

By tenth grade, I started praying that my carpool would crash on the ride to school and leave me too crippled to play. Desperate and on the verge of tears, I confessed this to a friend one day, and after looking at me like I was some kind of lunatic, he said simply, "Dude, quit."

Quit?

The thought that I could actually quit something had never crossed my mind. After all, "quitters never win" and "winners never quit" and "good things come in small packages"... etc. That very day, I went up to my football coach and told him I was quitting. Since I basically sucked at football, he simply said "okay" and shrugged. Elated beyond belief, I went straight home and turned on the TV. Learning to quit had miraculously changed me from a miserable bastard running circles around a field until I vomited into a smiling young man lounging on the couch eating raw cookie dough out of the tube. Not only that, but I finally found time to indulge in some of those recreational drugs I'd been hearing so much about.

Of course, a few months later when wrestling season started, I learned that quitting isn't always so easy. While I was far from a great wrestler, I was at least okay, and just so happened to be the only kid in my weight class. I also had a psychopath for a coach.

When I came into the gym before practice, and told him I was quitting, he turned a disturbing shade of plum.

"You can't quit! You're our 175 pounder!"

"I'm sorry, but wrestling just isn't for me."

"What are you some kind of homo?" (Since wrestling essentially involves rolling around on the floor and groping other skimpily-clad boys, homophobia was actively encouraged.)

"Uh... no..."

"Listen to me." Since he wasn't a tall man, he went up on his tiptoes to get in my face. "If you quit now, you will regret this for the rest of your goddamn life. On your f#!%ing deathbed in whatever loser s#!%hole you end up in, you will regret this!"

All the other miserable wrestlers had stopped rolling around on the sweat-soaked mats and were staring at me in awe by this point, but I stayed strong and walked out of the gym a quitter. I have to admit that for the next hour or so, I was in shock, wondering if I really had made a horrible decision. But when I got home, cranked up the stereo, and kicked it on the couch with my tube of cookie dough and bong, I started to cry--tears of joy. It is, to this day, the single best decision I have ever made.

EXERCISES

Do you regularly find yourself "putting in extra effort?" Perhaps you occasionally "burn the midnight oil" or even find yourself "sautéing the corporate shiitake?" Well, the following exercises should make you a quitter in no time.

1) TAKE UP A NEW HOBBY OR SPORT AND THEN QUIT IT

I recommend doing this in the "New Year's Resolution" tradition. I'll take up a sport (I thinking boxing was the last one I tried) and train like a madman for a week, spending hours in the gym or on the field and reading every book I can find on the subject. Then at the end of the week, I quit. I tell you, it makes you feel like you're lying on the couch eating cookie dough for the first time.

With hobbies I go out of my way to pick something really really pointless, lest I end up actually enjoying it. I've tried everything from trainspotting to studying Esperanto. At the end of the week, I crack open a twelve pack and watch Family Guy reruns until I forget every bit of useless hobby-related knowledge I've acquired. It's almost on par with bitch-slapping your boss and walking out of a job you really hate.

2) QUIT READING NOW AND DO NOT ANSWER THE FOLLOWING QUESTIONS:

1) What's the most amount (in kilograms) of cheese that you've ever eaten in one sitting?

2) If you had to have nonconsensual sex with a member of the crustacean subphylum, would you go lobster or crab?

3) Valium or Vicodin?

4) Would you rather slaughter and clean an ostrich or a moose?

5) Are you more prejudiced against redheads or people with webbed toes?

6) If you were a porn star, what would be your onscreen specialty?

7) Would you rather have really big hair or a really small head?

8) They just announced that your plane's departure time has been delayed ten minutes. Do you join all the other moronic passengers in whipping out your cell phone and calling someone who obviously doesn't give a crap?

9) Would you rather spend two years in a maximum security prison, or have your left foot amputated?

10) If you had to bludgeon a small child to death, would you use:

a) A baseball bat.

b) A hammer.

c) A golf club.

d) Another small child.

About the Author

Jonathan Selwood grew up in Hollywood and is the author of the forthcoming novel, The Pinball Theory of Apocalypse (Harper Perennial, August 2007.) He received an M.F.A. from Columbia University and now lives in Portland, Oregon. Visit www.jonathanselwood.com