OMG.

is overused. 

But today is the last day of school for a long, long while and thus it warrants an OMG.  Yesterday in-between whatever it is I do and call work (painting, writing, observing) I thought about how to quit. I thought about quitting while on my run the other day. And for whatever reason, I thought about the time my dad told me, "Quitters never win and winners never quit." I may have been 10. Or 20. I don't remember the context. I think I was getting ready to run a race. But yesterday I looked for outs. I found them. Success stories of quitters: people who no longer work with a safety net below. I'm being intentionally vague. There are several things I could quit, some I should, and one or two I won't, but still think about in moments of down.

Fortunately, I know myself very well. The chain of events goes something like this: 

work hard. 

achieve. 

plateau.

second guess.

work harder.

achieve.

plateau.

work harder.

get tripped up by shit out of my control.

second guess.

wonder if there's more and why.

keep going. 

plateau.

push to max.

near burn out.

contemplate options.

shift focus at critical time.
*This stage is almost always accompanied by a strong desire to go undercover and detach.

deja vu.

and so forth and so on. 

I'm currently in 'shift focus at critical time' but can't remember how that played out in the past. 

At the end of a generous portfolio review I asked a student who managed to miss not only his scheduled meeting time, but the make-up meeting time, what he got out of  my class. He professed to not liking the class, had no idea what "observational" drawing was when he signed up, and ergo, was not particularly satisfied when he discovered the entire semester would be spent learning how to draw what one sees. Still, he said he "looks at things differently now and that was kind of cool."

I'm calling that a win. FK everything else.