Three Reasons “Be First or Quit” is a Stupid Philosophy
Life isn’t a game meant to be won. It’s meant to be played.
I’m sorry. I tried to sugarcoat it. I tried to find more nice ways to say it.
I failed.
There is only one way I can react to a recent Medium essay by Darius Foroux. I have enjoyed his writing in the past, even those I disagreed with.
But recently, he wrote a piece that used a joke from Jerry Seinfeld and tried to make it into a life philosophy. A career strategy. A call to action.
It’s disastrous.
The idea was basically along the lines of: if you can’t be “first” in your career, you should quit and find a different career. Why? Because life is all a game, and no one likes losing games, so obviously you should only pick games that you can win.
I’m paraphrasing, to be sure, but the quotes back me up: “…if you’re not good at a particular game, it’s better to stop. Go and find a different game you can win at.”
I’m…having trouble figuring out how to adequately express how many ways this idea makes no sense. We could start with the idea that not everyone or everything is a game, or even a competition, or perhaps the idea that by that logic everyone would always play video games at…
