When I Wanted to QUIT Everything—But Didn’t

“There was a point where walking away felt easier than fighting through. My job, my goals, even the version of myself I was trying so hard to build—it all felt heavy. I wanted to quit everything. But then… I didn’t.”

🌊 The Valley

I was drained. At work, the more efficient I became, the more tasks piled onto my plate. At home, family needed my time, money, and attention. Friends kept unloading their problems on me, and those stories replayed in my head long after the calls ended, filling me with negativity.

I wanted to do something creative, something fresh. Ideas came—but instead of acting on them, I drowned them in endless scrolling. At first it was minutes, then hours, until it became a routine. My thumb even felt stronger from daily scrolling, like I could win a thumb-wrestling championship.

Meanwhile, everyone else seemed to sprint ahead: promotions, new cars, overseas trips. And me? I felt stuck. A failure. Some nights, I came home with such pounding headaches I had to take paracetamol before I could even sit with my kids. I’d collapse on the sofa, too exhausted to read or reflect, but somehow always with enough energy to scroll for that next dopamine hit.

I was burning out. My life felt like it was slipping through my fingers. And I began to wonder: Would it be easier to just quit everything?

🛑 The Turning Point

Then life forced me to stop. A severe lung infection knocked me flat. After two weeks of coughing blood, I was hospitalized. Lying there, staring at the hospital ceiling, I asked myself: “Is this how it ends? Am I really going to leave life like this—tired, bitter, unfinished?”

That’s when images of my kids came to me. Their small hands clearing plates after dinner, helping with laundry, taking out the trash at night. They’d been so patient, so good—and yet I hadn’t been truly present.

And my wife… she had leaned on me in her lowest moments, and I had stood strong for her. But now, I could feel myself slipping, and the thought of leaving her to carry it all alone terrified me.

In the middle of this, my phone buzzed with a notification from a random motivation app. The quote read:

“When you feel like quitting, remember why you started.”

Later that night, another one:

“Don’t give up on yourself—someone you love is counting on you.”

Those words hit differently in a hospital bed.

💡 The Anchor: We all have that one thing that keeps us tethered when life feels unbearable. For some, it’s family. For others, it’s a dream, a promise, or even the younger version of yourself who refused to give up. Find that anchor—and hold it tight.

⚔️ The Battle

Coming out of the hospital alive, there wasn’t some cinematic moment where everything turned around. Life didn’t suddenly become easier. In fact, most days, it still felt heavy. But something inside me had shifted—I didn’t want to leave the stage like that.

So I started small. Not the kind of small that feels heroic, but the kind that almost looks pathetic from the outside. Ten minutes of walking when my body screamed for the couch. Putting my phone in another room just so I could listen to my kids at dinner without the urge to scroll. Scribbling down one messy idea on paper even when my brain said, “What’s the point?”

At first, it felt pointless. The walks didn’t fix my fatigue. The dinners didn’t instantly reconnect me with my kids. The writing didn’t spark brilliance. But step by step, choice by choice, something was rebuilding in me.

I realized it wasn’t about winning every day—it was about not surrendering.

🌟 The Payoff

Looking back now, the payoff wasn’t some grand victory. It wasn’t a promotion, or a car, or a trip that proved I had “made it.” The payoff was more quiet, more fragile, but infinitely more valuable.

I began to see my kids’ faces light up when I asked about their day and actually listened. I began to hear my wife laugh more often, because she knew I was present, not just a ghost in the room. My ideas—once buried under exhaustion and comparison—began to surface again, slowly shaping into projects worth pursuing.

Most importantly, I stopped seeing myself as someone who was failing just because life was hard. I saw myself as someone still standing, still choosing, still walking.