What do you mean, "You quit? You can't quit..."
Everybody needs a job. Everybody must take the Iowa Basic Achievement Test. Everybody must continually compare themselves to others. In order to have order we must define that order and we must always keep order. Are you in the top or the bottom of your class? Did you win the game? Who did you go to the dance with? What do you do? How do you do? Where do you live? What does your father do? Let me see your report card... We constantly, compulsively measure ourselves... We want to know just how good and just how bad we are... When you quit what you perceive you have to do, you will discover what you want to do... I am not suggesting that you do nothing, I am suggesting that anything you perceive you must do ruins your life... It is never too early to quit, and it is never too late to quit.
YOU'RE ABOUT TO DISCOVER THE ART OF LETTING GO
How much of your day is consumed by what you perceive you have to do? Rules you think you have to follow? Games you believe you have to play? What can you do to get out from under it all? QUIT! It's the one choice we never seriously consider. Quit something you feel you must do and you'll soon discover that you never had to do it in the first place. In the process you'll discover what you really want to do. By letting go, you'll experience the genuine fullness and vitality of truly living.
READ THIS BOOK AND CREATE THE LIFE YOU WANT.
How to Win by Quitting explores the process of releasing yourself from all the not-so-necessary aspects of daily life. Somewhat autobiographical, it chronicles the life of a modern day Thoreau who quit the fast-paced and compulsive lifestyle of an executive for a life he now lives and loves fully.
Stocking's engaging stories and candid commentaries shake out the dust of our conventional thinking about work, marriage, parenting, the nature of competition, TV, holidays and more. You'll emerge from each chapter with a renewed view of the world around you--an awareness that this is a friendlier place than you thought and that there are no mandatory rules. Come along for the ride and examine your own life. How to Win by Quitting is radical, witty, wise and highly useful.
How much of your day is consumed by what you perceive you have to do? ...rules you think you have to follow? ...games you believe you have to play? What can you do to get out from under it all? QUIT! It’s the one choice we never seriously consider. Quit something you feel you must do and you’ll soon discover that you never had to do it in the first place. In the process you’ll discover what you really want to do. By letting go, you’ll experience the genuine fullness and vitality of truly living.
$14.95 • ISBN# 0-9629593-5-9 / 272 pages
Special price, only ten dollars!
Section One:
Preface
Introduction
Chapter 1 - Quitting Work - page 1
Chapter 2 - "Thou Shalt Work" - page 12
Chapter 3 - The Carnival - page 19
Chapter 4 - "Thou Shalt Watch TV"- page 23
Chapter 5 - "Thou Shalt Be Consistent" - page 36
Chapter 6 - Stories, Rules and Presuppositions - page 45
Chapter 7 - Deer Me - page 56
Chapter 7.5 - There is No Such Thing as Truth - page 66
Chapter 8 - Kniht Tsuj - page 72
Chapter 9 - Quitting Control - page 77
Chapter 10 - Quitting the City - page 84
Chapter 11 - Games Explained - page 93
Chapter 12 - Quit What? - page 104
Chapter 13 - Look for the Signs - page 112
Chapter 14 - Building an Identity - page 120
Chapter 15 - Parenting - page 129
Chapter 16 - Chain of Command - page 137
Chapter 17 - You Must Think You Are Free - page 149
Chapter 18 - Any Game is Worth Quitting - page 159
Chapter 19 - The Mandatory Game--The Present- page 165
Chapter 20 - The Special Combination - page 173
Chapter 21 - The Craziness of Illusion--Revealed - page 182
Chapter 22 - Dismantling the Structures of Games: Presuppositions, Rules and Stories - page 191
Chapter 23 - Disassembly - page 198
Chapter 24 - February 17, 1990 - page 202
Section Two: A Piece of Cake
Introduction - page 219
Cake One - page 221
Cake Two - page 231
Cake Three - page 236
Cake Four - page 244
Cake Five - page 253
Cake Six - page 261
Cake Seven - page 267
Epilogue Coupon - page 274
It took several days to build a chicken coop for my daughter's fifty baby chickens. Once the chickens were in their new house, we ran chicken wire around an enclosed area, building a playground where they could explore and expand their world. I should have taken note of the chickens' behavior earlier. Upon entering their new coop, they huddled in one corner, and ventured out only when they were very thirsty or hungry. Triumphantly, I opened the front door of the coop, once the fence was up. No chicken ventured out. Perhaps they didn't understand what I had done for them. Perhaps they didn't know that in contrast to the confinement of their new house they were free, free to stretch their legs and run around, free to enter the sunlight for the first time and feel a breeze on their little beaks or combs.
I couldn't set the chickens free; they huddled together confining themselves into the smallest area that fifty baby chickens would fit into. With their entirely programmed little brains, they were not able to be free; only in my perception did freedom look like a large area to wander. To them, life, and perhaps safety, looked like the smallest area possible, huddled together with nothing to explore, and very little movement necessary or possible. At first, I was angry with the chicks. I had worked so hard to let them go, but they wouldn't be released. I even raised my voice; they huddled more closely. I pushed a couple of the chicks out the door, lightly. They emmediately went under the coop, a dark and dirt filled place uch more restrictive that the coop. It was very dif7ficult to get them out of their new hiding place. Finally, I understood; the chickens couldn't understand. It isn't possible to set someone free who doesn't want to be. Trapped is a state of mind. The chickens were trapped by their evolutionary position, programmed from birth to death. There was not a moment of liberation for them, no epiphany of release.
For years, I had been puzzled by the behavior of people in my workshops. I would show them how to be free, and they wouldn't accept it. They would huddle together, safe perhaps, certainly in hiding. When it is time to be free, when you are ready to be free, you will do what is necessary to be free. Freedom is not your birthright; you must set yourself free, because it is you who oppresses yourself. You are the problem and the solution, the ruler and the one who is ruled; you are free but don't know you are. Until you can be entirely oppressed, you cannot be free. If you are free, there will be nothing that you have to think or have to do. Nothing will be mandatory for you. This is a free country, but ironically nobody is free, almost nobody. I invite you to use quitting as a tool to set yourself free.
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My son, at age three and a half, was falling asleep on my lap. Hundreds of times, I had watched him fall asleep. He usually held his eyes open until he fell asleep. This time I asked him about it. I suggested that he clase his eyes and go to sleep. He replied, "I wouldn't want to hurt my eyes by forcing them closed. When my eyes close, I fall asleep; I just wait until they close." My son is not the least bit passive, but he trusts; he is patient enough to take and to appreciate what comes when it comes. Occasionally, his world falls apart, as he tries to have things be a certain way. He tries to force the universe to yield to his wishes. The results of such behaviors in a three-year-old are obvious and traumatic, but in an adult, they are so commonplace they are life itself. Do nothing, and you will discover what unfolds. You will discover your perfection, all the time, everywhere. You will return to the innocence of a child, and you won't have to control the universe. Earth is either a playground or a torture chamber; your perspective determines which. If you think that it is sometimes wonderful, and sometimes awful or always awful, you have forfeited the wonder and mystery that can be yours, always. If you settle for something, you won't think you deserve everything. Earth is your playground. Let your eyes close when they do and open when they do. When they open, look on Earth anew, for the first time, the best present that you can currently accept. Accept it.
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