"....did I say I quit? No, "quit" is too strong a term... I am taking an indefinite break... a pause...."

 "....did I say I quit? No, "quit" is too strong a term... I am taking an indefinite break... a pause...."

...said a friend, when we happened to connect with each other and I jokingly asked her if she still drank like a fish, just as she used to once upon a time.

This was around a time when I was wasting a lot of time behind something... something I knew I needed to stop wasting time on and the gateway to that thing was a simple app on my phone. One of my friends suggested I just uninstall the app and that should help me avoid it. It was a good suggestion. It was around that time that I happened to bump into this lady.

"What do you mean?" I asked, curiously.

"You see, it is I who control the alcohol intake now and not the other way round. I need not "quit" because I still like it, I just need to decide when I need to stay away from it and when not to. I haven't had a drop of it in the last one year or so but that doesn't mean I have quit. I have taken a break. A pause. I can go back to it in moderation whenever I wish to."

What she said just hit me like a bolt of lightning. I thought about the challenge I was facing then. I knew I was good at this thing but I had to either focus on getting better with discipline or just quit. Quitting was becoming a bit difficult. So I decided I needed to take a break. A one week break to think over it. The break eventually extended to a month and then I decided I don't want to define the length of the break. Let it be indefinite. If in future I feel like going back to it, why not! But I haven't quit yet.

The app stays on my phone. I no longer tap on it. It stays there very much in my easily accesible apps page. But I haven't uninstalled it. I control the app and the app doesn't control me now. But it doesn't mean I will never open it in my life again. Sometimes it's not always about quitting.

Yes, if it's a vice that you must quit - then you must quit. This anecdote is not to discourage people who have successfully quit things like smoking or other forms of substance abuse. This is about the other things in life which aren't bad - but excess of it can be bad if they aren't giving you returns worthy of your time and efforts.

A pause. A break. Easier to execute than asking your mind to quit for certain situations. For all you know, it could be as good as giving up on it. But "quit" is too strong a term, at times.

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