Starting and stopping
The last steam locomotive in the United States was produced in 1953. Did they know it was over before or after it was complete? (Every Boy's Book of Railways and Steamships, 1911)
I never should have bought my first house.
It had an awkward floor plan and poor natural light. An ugly apartment building loomed over the backyard, and trains from the CSX rail yard would screech by at all hours of the day and night. Worse, I couldn't really afford it.
But I bought the house anyway because I focused on the upside and figured I could mitigate the downside. I have always tended to say yes to the new.
I hung onto that house through market changes, multiple moves, and multiple marriages. I hung onto it because I've always tended to hang onto whatever I've said yes to.
Eventually, I had to realize that the house was not an asset but a liability. You never know when you're going to get a random $3,000 water bill (thanks, City of Atlanta!).
I couldn't reverse my decision to buy the house, but I could make the decision to sell it. Choosing to eliminate something from my life is much less familiar to me than choosing to add something. It felt very strange.
The same phenomenon occurs elsewhere on a smaller scale. I joined Facebook in 2008 along with millions of other people. Even though Facebook is the tobacco of the twenty-first century, inertia keeps me from shutting down my account. In addition, I have countless other profiles on countless other sites; I opened them, but I will never close them because I don't even remember that they exist.
My life is cluttered enough now that I understand the truth: There is a limit to what I can undertake. If I want to start doing something, I will have to stop doing something else. If I want to acquire a new item, I will have to let go of another. I cannot continue an infinite number of legacy projects and hang onto an infinite amount of physical and digital artifacts.
Starting things is easy. Ending them is hard. It is a distinct skill that I need to put more effort into. Every so often, I must question a past "yes"—a domain registration, a piece of equipment, a service I offer—and decide whether it is time for it to go. Otherwise, things will just continue as they are, and I'll be paying for zombie software subscriptions and a storage unit devoted to lapsed hobbies until the end of time.
Even though it can be uncomfortable to end things, it is also freeing. It's impossible to measure how much mental space is taken up by previous commitments that no longer suit us. Only when we eliminate them will we know what we were weighted with.
These days, when I come up with an idea, I think through not just the potential benefits but also the risks and costs. I've come up with some fun-sounding things that just do not have a payoff that is powerful enough to be worth the hassle. As my friend Shannon so vividly put it the other day, "There's not enough juice to be worth the squeeze."
I believe that, as we get older, our decreasing energy is a gift. The fact that our physical and emotional resources are finite challenges us to be more intentional about how we choose to spend them. We can't say yes to everything like we did in our twenties. We have to be more discerning.
This discernment, too, has a cost, but it's balanced by a profound benefit: If we focus our energy and attention on what truly matters to us, our accomplishments will be more meaningful and our days will be more satisfying. Ironically, when we are content with less, our lives will be richer.
What might you stop doing that would make a difference in your life? What are you glad that you've already quit? I'd love to hear in the comments.
