“Never Give Up” — Anonymous, How stupid

It was a tough day. We had another training session out of a series of training we do for a large scale trading company about entering into commercial trading from state trading. We are dealing with a group of CXO level managers settled into the process-oriented government work structure, and guiding them to be outcome-oriented like the private sector. I saw one of our consultants having a serious discussion with one of the managers, and I noticed that this being the trend for the past couple of sessions.
On our way back, I asked my fellow consultant “what was your discussion about?” and he said, “It’s about understanding the mindset of a Manager in the private sector.” Being curious about the situation, I said: “I saw you two having discussions during the last couple of sessions and was them about the same topic?” He explained that he was trying to get this manager to think out of the box he is in but to no avail. With my curiosity at its peak, I asked “Aren’t you tired of explaining him? Is it worth to continue your efforts to change him? When is it good to give up?” He answered, “You should never give up, at least when you are making progress.”
Sounds familiar?
Believing that you should never give up is crap and will lead us to dive headfirst into a black hole where there is no coming back. Instead of not giving up at any cost, we should carefully decide which to give up and which not to give up. Giving up anything that seems complicated is as ineffective as not giving up something seemingly impossible. Seems counter-intuitive, right? Let me give you an example.
Consider a “Great White Shark”, meanest killing machine in high seas. Now imagine, they can think. One day one Great White Shark thought “I’m very good at what I’m doing at sea. But now I want to do the same in the land.” What will happen when the “Great White” tries to come on land? It will not be the beast it used to be. Assume the “Great White” decided not to give up and continue trying. What will happen? Will one day “Great White” will be able to survive and then thrive on the land? Of course, it will. That’s how humans evolved into who they are now from sea creatures. But it took millions of years. For that particular “Great White” it seems perfectly reasonable to give up the idea of surviving in the land and be the menacing killing machine in the sea.
Of course, one can argue, if whatever the creature hasn’t decided to come to land and continued to try for generations without giving up, humans would not have been here now. True, but here’s the missing puzzle piece. First, not all such creatures decided to go to land at the same time. Few pioneers leapt forward while others searched for their nitch. One went on to become a human and the other to become the Great White Shark. Secondly and ironically, they had to give up living on the sea to try their luck inland. If they never give up of living in the sea, there will be no humans.
Is the reality so far different from the above? We are talking about smaller changes compared to a fish trying to become a mammal, and on the other hand, we don’t have millions of years. Even doing something which might give you a reasonable outcome within twenty years may seem too long. But aren’t most of us running after such dreams to realize “Oh……., what my life would have been if I have done something which I haven’t done, simply because I didn’t dare to give up what I was doing at that time.”
So, how we can determine what to give up and what not to give up without using this as an excuse to justify things you gave up because you were lazy?
The answer is much simple than you think. The question you need to ask is, “Can I progress faster than my surrounding?” If yes, continue to work hard at it. But if everyone else moving way fast passing you, and with the most significant effort, you can’t go any quicker, then better to give up. You may use your saved energy to do something where you can gain something meaningful.
Does this make sense? Let me hear about what you could give up at this moment, to focus on a better opportunity.
Let me know if you want to see how you can answer the above question in a personal or an organizational level.