Is Quitting Underrated?
Should we teach our kids to always finish whatever they start, ignoring doubts both internal and external, and to bravely take on all obstacles and challenges no matter how large OR should we teach our kids to ruthlessly focus, only applying extraordinary effort on what is important, and quitting the unimportant?
This question of balancing (or not) grit and sunk cost has been with me for some time and I’d appreciate your own answer over email.
Not quitting is certainly a better default than quitting. Teaching grit helps establish someone’s locus of control in himself - the idea that you, not external actors, are primarily responsible for what happens in your life. A person with an internal locus of control believes that he didn’t get a good grade because he didn’t study hard enough. A person with an external locus of control believes he didn’t get a good grade because the exam / teacher / pencil / temperature / etc was at fault. That idea alone is one of the greatest keys to success. And, as a general rule, hard work works.
But sometimes you are better off quitting. Appreciating sunk cost involves the difficult discipline to ignore past efforts when considering future rewards. At its most basic, that means if you’re 50 pages into a dreary book, go read something else. It’s not likely to get better. True focus means saying no to even good ideas and absolutely not to bad ones. You have finite time, attention, and resources. We all have comparative advantages and disadvantages - maybe you dreamed of helping people as a doctor but you found that business came easier than biology. If in every fiber of your being you feel that medicine is your vocation, plough ahead. But you can also do a lot of good in business.
The difficult trick is to not rationalize quitting just because something is hard - and I think the only way to resolve that is by focusing on the importance of what we’re dealing with. Grit is admirable in the spouse who recommits to his marriage again and again and again even when times are tough. Appreciating sunk cost is admirable in the dating world when she’s just not that into you. Grit is admirable in the entrepreneur determined to work all hours to make her business succeed - but so is appreciating sunk cost if she has a better idea. Grit is admirable in the medic who goes back to the battlefield again and again to save 75 of his fellow soldiers. Appreciating sunk cost is admirable in the general who decides that capturing a particular trench isn’t worth another 1,000 lives.
I’ll give you a real, recent example. A boy is required to take fine arts at school (never mind the stupidity of such a general requirement). He chooses band over drama. A straight-A student, the boy struggles in band, hates it, and wants to switch. Should his parents allow him?
I advised yes. Who cares about success in band? Drama is probably more practical, anyway (though open question about which students are better to associate with). If the boy wanted to give up AP Chemistry for photography, I would be much much more skeptical. And yes, of course, the parents should have a conversation with him about how virtue and success demand hard work and that we are not hedonists who choose the easy way - even if, again, it’s silly that this is required, that’s the nature of life. We have to show grit in paying our taxes, too (though we should only pay as much as we have to!)
The ultimate lesson I want to impart to my son is that he should give his all every single day - but he should be careful about choosing to what. Notably, my own father, as hard a worker as anyone I’ve ever known, routinely observes that sunk cost is the most powerful lesson he learned in life - I am grateful he passed it on! What is less clear to me is when exactly such a nuanced and sophisticated lesson can be introduced in childhood. I know some friends who insist: never.
Welcome your thoughts.
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I am pleased to report that my son Knox is only three months old and he already grasps sound money.
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In our last correspondence, I asked whether you’d rather have the birth demos of Japan (98% born to married parents, low fertility rate) or Mexico (69% born to unmarried parents, fertility rate above replacement). About 3/4 responded Japan and a vocal 1/4 responded Mexico.
In many of my replies, I warned not to overread how birth demos contribute to the differences in the two specific countries when giving an answer. Yes, yes, Mexico has problems with lawlessness, but what about France, with a similar out of wedlock birth rate? Yes, yes, Japan is a very tidy place, but what about Turkey, with a similar out of wedlock birth rate? Yes, yes, Mexico is Catholic, but would you still prefer it over Italy, also Catholic, but with half as many children born out of wedlock?
A policy maven who chose Mexico came to the conclusion that my question was really a choice between spirituality and economics and produced an array of statistics about Mexico’s promising growth rate (I countered that Japan was significantly richer.) An investor who chose Japan observed that “the demographic nightmare is amongst generally all developed nations. So relatively less of a risk in terms of where capital will be allocated globally.” And indeed, I actually do invest in Japanese equities and none in Mexican.
A journalist asked if the statistics I shared might be hiding something, wondering “if Mexico is more akin to some of the Scandinavian countries — high unwed birthrate but prevalent two-parent family structure.” If so, he chose Mexico. Welcome data on this, but I am skeptical.
A social conservative inquired whether the difference between the countries could be attributed to abortion rates. And, yes, abortion is a factor in the out of wedlock birth rate - but note that Japan’s abortion rate per capita is 40% lower than the United States. Of the 20 countries with the most births outside of marriage in the original chart, all of them have a Christian heritage and 11 of them have a higher abortion rate per capita than Japan (though not Mexico, which has one of the lowest official rates). Abortion was only decriminalized in 2019 in both Mexico and South Korea, which like Japan, has 98% of its children born to married parents, Obviously, the stats on abortion tend to be fuzzy even in legal environments, much less illegal ones. But we can still pose a similar question to the original one: would you rather be Poland, where 26% of children are born out of wedlock, abortion is illegal, and they are still not having enough babies to exceed replacement, or Mexico?
For better or worse, I think it's worth contemplating this at an anecdotal level: do we prefer to befriend, marry the children of, have children who are, employ, be employed by, etc. married people with few children or unmarried people with lots of children? Or, more broadly, would we really celebrate a policy that successfully subsidized out-of-wedlock births, such that the average unmarried woman was having more than six kids? (Would we be indifferent to how many fathers were involved, so long as population replacement was achieved?) What percentage of the prison population was born to unmarried parents?
The policy maven replied: “These concerns manifest the more broadly you measure, so if I’m thinking about my neighborhood I’m going to have a very different answer than my state or country, and gains from trade is the key factor I’m looking at there. My neighbors will be fine having less people around, but only so long as the area making their food and producing their energy has enough people to maintain their living standards.”
Finally, another thread that came up repeatedly in correspondence is how easy either situation is to fix. In my review of What to Expect When No One’s Expecting, I noted that examples abound throughout history around the globe of countries trying to spur their populations to have more kids but that almost nothing works. It will be interesting to see if some of the more creative recent efforts from Hungary bear any fruit (such as giving a loan to newly married couple that is partially forgiven with each child birthed). Simultaneously, I am not familiar with specific incentive programs that have successfully increased the long term marriage rate. I am reminded of the classic quote from Friedrich Hayek: “The curious task of economics is to demonstrate to men how little they really know about what they imagine they can design." But I think the “fixability” of the situation still favors Japanese demos because of the prospect of trade and immigration -- and the Israeli case gives some hope to the rejuvenation of fertility with sustained strong traditional family ties.
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I recently spoke at the investiture of my friend Judge Stephen Vaden and got a chance to share one of my favorite legal stories, from the 19th century, when an alleged horse thief came before a judge in Tennessee. The judge asked him how he’d like to plead and the horse thief said “Not guilty, Your Honor.” So the judge told him that was fine and that he should prepare his defense for when the judge returned after riding circuit around the state. The next man to come before the judge was an alleged murderer. Again, the judge asked how he would like to plead. This man chose “Guilty, Your Honor.” So the judge issued his sentence: “Time served.”
At this point, the horse thief jumps up to get the judge’s attention, figuring he’s got a softie and wants to change his plea. The judge asks if he’s sure he wants to do that, and the horse thief insists: yes, now he’s guilty and throws himself at the mercy of the court. So the judge issued his sentence: “Seven years in the state penitentiary.” The horse thief is shocked: “But you gave the murderer time served!” And the judge responds: “Son, there are men in this county that need murderin’, but there are no horses that need thievin’.”
I also got to introduce former White House counsel Don McGahn, a literal rock star and lead guitarist for the 80s cover band Scott’s New Band.
We’re all thankful to have been “born in the USA” but I know plenty of people at the beginning of the Trump administration were thinking “should I stay or should I go?” I am just glad that amidst the “final countdown,” you made sure that “we’re not gonna take it” from the media and the left, that we “don’t stop believing,” and that we donors didn’t spend “money for nothing.” I hope before too long you will be saying “here I go again.” With your leadership, “nothing’s gonna stop us now” because, although “we didn’t start the fire” that is burning through the judiciary, we’re trying to make sure the courts are “just like heaven” of constitutional originalism, such that all Americans can enjoy such rights as “Janie’s got a gun” or perhaps even choose to “rock the casbah.”
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One mom who clearly prizes grit is Amy Chua, author of Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother (8/10), which probably qualifies as my own version of reality television - wild, amusing, entertaining. Is quitting underrated? Chua insists: “as a parent, one of the worst things you can do for your child’s self-esteem is to let them give up. On the flip side, there’s nothing better for building confidence than learning you can do something you thought you couldn’t.”
Perhaps the most illustrative example of the tiger mom model comes from Chua’s own childhood: “In eighth grade, I won second place in a history contest and brought my family to the awards ceremony. Somebody else had won the Kiwanis prize for best all-around student. Afterward, my father said to me: ‘Never, never disgrace me like that again.’”
More advice from her immigrant father included “Make sure you come in first so that you have something to be humble about.” And, reflecting strong teaching on locus of control, “Never complain or make excuses. If something seems unfair at school, just prove yourself by working twice as hard and being twice as good.”
Chua was born in the US but determined to pass along something of the high standards of her own childhood: she never let her children attend a sleepover (in which sleep rarely occurs and nasty gossip proliferates), watch TV, play computer games, choose their own extracurricular activities, get any grade less than an A, “not be the #1 student in every subject except gym and drama.” Indeed, she would take her daughters out of school to avoid certain useless subjects. “No Chinese kid would ever dare say to their mother, ‘I got a part in the school play! I’m Villager Number Six. I’ll have to stay after school for rehearsal every day from 3:00 to 7:00, and I’ll also need a ride on weekends.’”
What she did was insist that her daughters take up classical music because, in her view, it represented “the opposite of decline, the opposite of laziness, vulgarity, and stillness.” ‘Strict’ Western parents might insist on practicing an hour after school. She ensured her daughters practiced for at least 90 minutes a day, 365 days a year, twice as long on lesson days. “Western parents are concerned about their children’s psyches. Chinese parents aren’t. They assume strength, not fragility, and as a result they behave very differently.”
The underlying philosophy was: “What Chinese parents understand is that nothing is fun until you’re good at it. To get good at anything you have to work, and children on their own never want to work, which is why it is crucial to override their preferences.” The virtuous cycle is that practice leads to excellence which leads to admiration which leads to satisfaction.
One Asian friend insists that the essential truth of the book is that "childhood achievement is really hard and requires full dedication of parents who reject cultural bullshit." Chua says the typical western parents “keep repeating things like ‘You have to give your children the freedom to pursue their passion’ when it’s obvious that the ‘passion’ is just going to turn out to be Facebook for ten hours which is a total waste of time and eating all that disgusting junk food.” Her Jewish mother-in-law “saw childhood as something fleeting to be enjoyed. [In contrast, Chua] saw childhood as a training period, a time to build character and invest for the future.”
Altogether worth reading, both for its critique of the normal and because her younger daughter rebels against the regime. I don’t share Chua’s faith in classical music and I have a lot more faith in the opportunity to find useful proclivities that my son can invest in -- but I appreciate her rejection of mediocrity and constant striving for something better for her kids (her older daughter went on to Harvard, Yale Law, a Supreme Court clerkship, and is a prosecutor in US Army JAG; her second daughter also went to Harvard, then Harvard law, and is now in private practice).