About Giving Up

I know.. it's kind of a deep topic but one I feel strongly about. A few things happened to my friends lately and I just got me thinking about the concept of 'giving up'.

There are a few ways in looking at this. The first one comes to mind is when people give up an idea or a way of life or changing light bulbs or baking voluntarily, whatever that might be, because things just don't work out sometimes. And then there are people who just give up involuntarily because the world is not up to them, it's them versus the world. You also have people who want to give up on other people because they just can't be bothered, too much work. Why invest their time when they can just 'buy things off the shelf'? There are way too many cases on giving up. If you have not given up on yourself or others or whatever in your life, good for you. But it's only human to feel shit, it's about how we overcome the shits in life because if we don't care about ourselves, no one will. People may give up on you, but you should never give up on yourself.

You'd think that people learn from their own mistakes from previous experience or you'd think people have a conscience when shit happens. Of course, you may say it's better to give up sometimes and put ourselves or other out of the misery. May be. But I ask you to reconsider, it's not a bad thing to always see good in people, you don't know what you are walking away from.

As an example, my friend was recently let go by his employer. I happen to know this person very well, I worked with him. I know the kind of worker and person he is. Not because he is like a little brother to me, he works hard, he is smart, he gets things done, and he is a quick learner. His attitude towards learning and not giving up astonish me. He was taking a break from studying law, and thought this job would be a good opportunity for him to connect the real world. He may not have been with the company for too long and this is not the industry he originally intended to join, but he has potentials. It was on the job training. Not to the extend of training Clark Kent to be superman, but where can you find a good loyal Gen Y like my friend these days? Considering the company is known for giving up on people and firing them. I know it is a business decision, but it is a crap one.

If you don't trust the person you hire, don't hire them or at least trust your own judgement for hiring this person. My friend is young, so young he may not even realise his potentials, it is the manager's job to invest their time on talents. If they intent to hire someone with no experience, then it made sense to have a strategy in mind to train this person and show him the way. He was let go this week, and the reason they gave him was that they were going through a restructuring and they wanted to hire someone more senior. But I saw the new job ad, the qualification was not more than what was advertised when my friend was looking for a job.

Was it a personality thing? Was it something he did or didn't do? The other day, he was just telling me how pumped he was with all the new projects and he wasn't going to give up, he wanted to show them, and he was going to kick it in the ass! I like that, you know. Any employers who know this kind of Gen Y employees who have the right mind set, attitude and loyalty, you can't go wrong. 

I am just questioning why. Like, why do people just give up? I was a lucky little vegemite. I was new to a job once, I was never sure if was doing the right thing, but my mentor/ manager told me "never underestimate your ability, I believe in your, so you should believe in yourself." Sounds like a line straight out from a movie or something, right? But hands on my heart, it was exactly what she said. Twice I have experienced this and pushed myself to the limit and see how far I'd go. Not that I was giving up or anything, but the role of mentors, friends and family is important. They are supposed to pull you out of darkness when you don't even realise you're surrounded by it.

Perhaps people just don't have time to invest in good people anymore? Of course, you may say, something must have gone wrong etc.. But when something is not right, people don't discuss for a solution, they discuss for a termination. This really got me thinking about what the hell were we doing in the first place? If my friend sucks, I understand. But I know, this time it was the company that sucks. And why would you leave an unnecessary emotion scar on a good worker and a good person? 

I feel sorry for my friend, because he had all the right reasons and attitude to reach his potentials in this company. But you know what... their lost! I know this is not the end for my young friend, he is going to kick it in the ass. I think this is when a hero is born.