I think that the degree of effort and hard work that gets put into things nowadays is severely lacking. And, as a parent, or guardian, or educator, you owe it to yourself and your children/students to instill values that will follow them through life.
Life is hard. I constantly am reminding my students of this, it is my answer to everything, whether it be “I’m tired”, or “this is hard”. Yes. Yes it is, and it probably won’t get any easier as time goes on. However, that is not a reason to give up on something, or even someone.
What challenges us makes us stronger. Better. Able to handle more. Those who can push through often come out on the other side happier, albeit not without scars. And scars are okay. With them, we know we gave 100%.
With that being said, when you commit to something, it is exactly that. It is a commitment. You don’t get to stop halfway through, and decide, “well, it got hard. I got bored. I just don’t want to.” These are excuses. Most of the time, when you quit, especially an activity like dance, you are not quitting on yourself. You are quitting on the choreographer who spent weeks creating pieces (sometimes based around YOU) planning spaces, rehearsing. You are quitting on your teammates, who rely on you, who shoulder just as much responsibility as you. You are quitting on your parents, who probably have invested years of their money on you. (When they could’ve taken a vacation twice a year with what they spent on lessons and costumes.) You are walking out on friends, on a team, a commitment you made to be a part of something larger than you.
As a parent, there is no way you should teach your child that quitting is ok. I understand the older you get the more responsibility you take on. But that is going to happen all your life. What happens when you get a job, and it just gets to be “too much?” Do you quit? Who pays the rent? The car payments? The electric bill? Sometimes things get in the way, and we forget how much something means to us once we give it up. Take a break, but don’t quit. Your commitment is going to be something that eventually people will rely on. If you back out of everything starting now, no one will want to work with you later on.
Unfortunately, or fortunately, my mother never let me stop anything. If I decided I didn’t want to do it, that was fine. But I was finishing the year, semester, program, class…whatever it was. I didn’t have to go back, but I couldn’t stop cold turkey. I learned that sometimes we have to finish this we might not like. That sometimes I ended up LIKING that which I thought I did not. That at the end the sense of completion was a much better feeling that having to say, “I quit.”
So knock it off. Yes, life gets in the way, yes, things get hard. But you push through, you learn time management, and you end up being a better person later on and life. So put down your phone, get your stuff, and get in class. And love it.