Jimi Hendrix and Calvin Coolidge in a cave

Yes, that's really the title I'm going with.

In the 1969 Space Race in, the U.S. beat the Soviets to the moon. The Americans succeeded. In the eyes of the world, the Russians lost.

In 1951, J.D. Salinger published “The Catcher in the Rye,” which became a massive success almost immediately despite being the literary equivalent of a braided leather belt. Not long after, Salinger withdrew from the public eye and rarely published his work.

In 1928, Calvin Coolidge decided not to seek re-election as president. He probably would’ve won. When he chose not to run again, people criticized him.

The Soviets lost.

Salinger was a one-hit wonder.

Coolidge couldn’t hack it for another 4 years.

Forget, of course, that the USSR put the first satellite into orbit and the first human into space.

Ignore the fact that Salinger lived the life that most closely aligned with his values.

Gloss over the reality that Coolidge served as president during a period of prosperity and was self-aware enough to realize he’d rather preserve his effectiveness than burn out.

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Stop me if you’ve heard this story before:

In May 2022, I quit my job to try to make a career as a freelance writer.

(At some point, I’ll have to do something else cool so I stop leaning on this story, but today is not that day.)

In October 2022, I signed my first client. That was 27 months ago.

So let me ask you this:

If I decided tomorrow to go back to Corporate America, would that mean I failed?

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Society likes to treat success and failure as binary.

“Winners never quit and quitters never win.”

But outside of the yin-yang symbol, the Gutenberg Bible, and The Jimi Hendrix Experience, few things in the world are actually black and white.

But our brains don’t like gray area.

There are a few reasons for this.

For one, humans are uncomfortable with uncertainty. Ambiguity leads to anxiety. When we make things binary — this is good or this is bad — we create a sense of certainty or control.

Our brains are also wired to make fast decisions. Probably some sort of survival instinct. “Grog have club, I have club, I use club, Grog no get chance use club.” That sort of thing.

So when we categorize things into right or wrong, we can make decisions more quickly and our cognitive load is reduced.

Modern media also conditions binary thinking. Simplified narratives are easier to digest, engage with, and relate to. It’s you vs. me, us vs. them, democrats vs. republicans.

So when we evaluate our own paths in life, we fall back onto these patterns.

“If I achieve XYZ, I succeeded.”

“If I don’t, I failed.”

None of that is true.

Success is not binary.

Neither is failure.

The world is one pulsing mass of nuance, a paint can swirling with colors being mixed, mashed, and married together.

So they’ll tell you that “Winners never quit and quitters never win.”

But the reality?

Winners quit all the time to pursue new things. Quitters win when they find paths they’d rather take.

There’s a difference between giving up and letting go.