Not Finishing Things Is One of the Great Joys of Life
To save time and feel greatly relieved, stop trying to finish everything.
Another belief you may have assimilated at some point without much thought is that everything needs to be finished.
Great news: this belief is entirely false. Many things you start can be abandoned! In fact, you’ll be much better off if you learn to “un-finish.”
For example, I know people who commit to finish every book they start to read, no matter what they think of it. To each their own—but personally I think this is a mistake. There are many, many great books in the world. Far more, in fact, than you could ever read, even if you narrow the list down to your absolutely favorites.
Why then would you force yourself to keep slogging along with one that isn’t working for you? Much better to stop and move on to another that you might enjoy much more.
Not Finishing Doesn’t Mean You Hated It
Un-finishing doesn’t only apply when you don’t like something. Maybe you learned all you needed from that book. Maybe that TV series was great for the first season or even just the first few episodes, but it really didn’t need to go on forever.
You enjoyed it until you stopped enjoying it, and that is the time for you to stop watching it. Instead of binge-watching the rest, questioning the screenwriting and directorial choices along the way, appreciate the memory of what it was.
By adopting this practice, you will experience two amazing benefits. First, you’ll save an incredible amount of time.
Even if you’re a fast reader, it will take you an average of four hours to read a 300-page book. Stop 50 pages in if it’s not working for you, and you get back three hours of your life.
The fifth season of the show that started so well but then just kept humming along because Netflix gave them more money? Another nine hours.
The second amazing benefit is that you will feel incredibly free.
If you’re used to the habit of always trying to finish, it might seem strange at first, like you’re skipping school or otherwise being naughty. You might expect to feel bad, since dropping out early isn’t what you’ve been accustomed to.
But soon thereafter, you’ll feel better—much better, in fact. You’ll be proud of yourself for trusting your intuition and moving on.
This is especially true for anything that has a financial cost, like walking out of a movie that you’ve paid to see in a theater. Be bold! By walking away, you are making an investment in yourself.
Cutting Things Short Also Applies to Social Situations
Adopt and adapt this principle wherever you can in life, not just to books and TV, but anywhere you can move on from something that’s not enjoyable or helpful to you.
I understand that this is harder in social situations, but the more you can “un-finish” from anything, the more you’ll experience the two benefits (more time, more pride in your ability to value what you enjoy).
One thing that might help is to strategically avoid situations where it’s hard to “un-finish.” A friend of mine went on an online dating kick a few months after a divorce. She wasn’t entirely sure what she was looking for, so she wanted to meet a lot of people to find out.
It was an interesting experiment, and she learned something early on: dinner and a movie (or sometimes just dinner!) is way too long for a first date. She started meeting her dates for an early evening walk with coffee or tea in hand. Doing so made the process feel more active, instead of just sitting across from a stranger in a restaurant, and it also came with an intuitive timetable of an hour or less.
If she—and the other person, of course—were enjoying the vibe, they could always extend the date into dinner. But if not, the date could logically conclude after the walk, my friend could say goodnight, and then move on with her life. She didn’t feel trapped into spending more time than she wanted, and she didn’t feel rude in concluding.
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Whether in books, movies or television, social situations, and probably many other examples, not finishing things is one of the great joys of life.
Do yourself a great favor and learn to un-finish. You’ll save time and build self-confidence. You might even find that
I recently decided to pause on a master's program I've been in for about 4 years... Actually, I should say I've been slogging through for about 4 years.
11 courses in, 6 to go, but even after that, there is an exam and a lengthy (unpaid or low-paying) internship to prove my abilities. The program wasn't lighting my fire and more importantly, instead of enabling me, I think it was holding me back. I believe there is another path for me to do the work I want to do w/o meeting all these state requirements. I am THRILLED w/ this decision. I don't feel ashamed or regretful and have opened myself up to the question of "What's next?" How exactly do I do the work I want to do? And it's truly wonderful, no longer spending many, many hours reading text books, writing papers, etc.
Thank you for broaching this topic. Very timely for me!
The more things you quit that you don't like gives you more time to finish things you do like. Sounds perfect!