With fall comp season behind us and an uncharted semester ahead, many Harvard students are now finding themselves swamped with a variety of new and residual extracurricular obligations on top of the mounting pressure of acclimating to an unfamiliar course schedule. Surrounded by the whirlwind of grind culture and the competitive comp processes to which even the Spring is far from immune, it is easy to feel overwhelmed and even easier to feel obligated to take every opportunity available. This is especially true as comps — Harvard’s club-joining procedures — have increasingly shifted to completion-based models from having historically operated on a competitive basis, making it easier for students to plug in to Harvard’s many extracurricular outlets.
Nonetheless, after spending copious amounts of time applying, interviewing, competing, and training for membership in different student organizations, many may now find themselves disinterested in and unfulfilled by the groups that they have ultimately joined. Despite this, students remain reluctant to quit due to all of the effort they have already expended throughout the comp process.
Economists call this dilemma the sunk costs fallacy—a phenomenon that motivates people to continue pursuing a goal or activity simply because they have already invested a lot of time, money, or effort into the project. This kind of status quo bias is often intensified by the pressure of an ongoing commitment like a club or a team. While our social aversion to quitting can help us persevere through challenges, it can also transform into a dangerous force when we are confronted with too many hurdles at once.
Recently, student life has exemplified this problem of compounding challenges. From an unexpected shift to remote classes to a campus-wide mental health crisis spurred by social isolation to dorm-room rodent infestations, it’s been a rough couple of years. Outside of our campus gates, though, similar accumulated struggles have led people to do exactly what Harvard students often don’t: quit. In the wake of the pandemic, we’ve witnessed a global uptick in people quitting their jobs, their marriages, and even their hometowns. With such dramatic life changes becoming more prevalent around the world, why is quitting still so stigmatized at Harvard?
Beginning in early childhood, we are bombarded with a fusillade of anti-quitting propaganda. Old adages like “winners never quit and quitters never win,” can be heard everywhere from youth soccer games to SAT prep sessions. These aphorisms reflect our collective social disdain for the act of giving up. We have all been implicitly and explicitly indoctrinated to believe that quitting is weak, lazy, and shortsighted, while persisting against all odds is admirable, worthy of respect, and inevitably gratifying. This stigmatization of quitting as a cowardly act has likely compelled us to push past barriers and accomplish many impressive feats. But what if, sometimes, quitting is the best thing to do?
While pithy phrases meant to motivate high achievement may seem harmless, they fail to acknowledge that our time and effort are limited commodities. An economist would reference the principle of opportunity cost: every second you spend on a club you’re not truly passionate about, every ounce of effort you pour into a class that you dread, represents effort and time that can no longer be spent anywhere else. We choose where to create our joy. When we put our resources into things that ultimately are not satisfying, we will be unsatisfied.
At Harvard, there’s a constant urge to always be doing something. Not necessarily something you love. Not necessarily something you’re passionate about. Just something. To the College students out there, I urge you not to allow this impulse to compel you into a project you are not passionate about simply for the sake of being productive. You will always feel unproductive at Harvard until you realize that your own personal fulfillment can be a product of value. Downtime is not necessarily wasted time.
When we devote significant amounts of time and energy into anything, it becomes increasingly difficult to leave it all behind, even if it is making us miserable. I’m not arguing that quitting is always the best course of action or that one should give up whenever something gets a little too difficult. In fact, I truly think there’s a lot to be learned from persevering in the face of obstacles. That being said, I am suggesting that, often, quitting is better than remaining unhappy.
I’m surely not the first to suggest that when you can avoid unpleasantness, you should take every reasonable avenue to do so. Don’t continue headlong into an effort with blind ambition, and instead, learn to recognize when the drawbacks outweigh the benefits before your sunk costs become so heavy that you are unable to resurface. If you find yourself dissatisfied with a long-term engagement, don’t keep going simply for the sake of “not quitting.” Keep going only if your impetus for doing so is genuinely meaningful to you.
Remember: you’re not quitting because you’re weak or unmotivated, you’re quitting because you’re smart enough to prioritize decisions that work for you.
So, if you realize that you have made a bad choice or held on for too long — regardless of how heavy your sunk costs may feel — this is your sign to quit.
Image by Mathieu Stern is licensed under the Unsplash License
