Quit On Purpose | The Freedom of an Impermanent Personality

"You never stick with anything in your life." A Reddit post about changing hobbies opens up a bigger question... what if your personality and identity are not fixed but simply practiced? Moe thoughtfully introduces personality plasticity, giving listeners permission to become anew over and over again with challenges to reconceptualize oneself. 

Contact: hellomangomoe@gmail.com 

Intro/outro music credit:   

• Title: "feeling happy today [upbeat happy beat]
• Artist: snoozy beats
• Source: Free Music Archive 
• License type: CC BY

Transcript

Speaker 0:02

Hello everyone! Welcome to the Gossip Practice, a thoughtful take on talks as a tool for reading between life's lines. I'm your host, Moe. Every episode is another interesting story I've come across. Here, we merge a sort of amateur investigative journalism with fun thoughts and opinions. It's gossip as a lens for how we relate. Thanks in advance for listening. Alrighty! Hello and welcome again. At the time of recording here, it is Memorial Day weekend, which means so much time and fun in the sun now that it's- actually, no. I was gonna say, now that it's warmer here in Chicago, and therefore the perfect beach-y / beginning of summer kind of weekend, but it's actually been rather warm and then really chilly. It makes me wonder if we're actually in the desert by the way that it like warms up during the day and then cools way, way down in the night, but anyway. I have been scrolling on my phone for hours and days on end, which is quite unlike me, actually. I'm a rather offline person, but I've found myself in an unfortunate kind of medical situation during this weekend with the extra day off from my office job. Therefore, I've been resting. And rest is important, yes, but I don't have the right tools to fully rest without any phone screen or TV screen being present. I love to put devices completely far away, out of sight, out of mind, and therefore I will rest without a screen, but if there is a screen in the vicinity, trust and believe I will be on it if I'm not doing something else physically. To take advantage of the endless scrolling though, I stumbled across a post on Reddit from R / Am I The Asshole, and I'm excited to read through it then chat together today. Our original poster, or OP, asks whether they're the asshole for changing hobbies often. Their mom offered to give away a plant, which might do nicely at OP's new home garden. She said, "I just hope this doesn't fall to the wayside like all your other hobbies. You never stick with anything in your life." Whoa! Mom of Redditor: what? Okay... OP says mom has sung this tune for their entire life and views the following experiences as a giving up of hobbies. Number one. OP had fun playing in their elementary['s] and middle school's band and orchestra, but did not join the high school concert band because they wanted to decline the marching band aspect of it all. Real. I know it was literally high school, but I personally despise when powers that be make a package deal out of completely different experiences. It's actually why I myself stopped playing the flute in college. I had this preconceived notion that if I wanted to be part of any musical ensemble, I needed to be part of the college marching band, which seemed like hell. But I didn't realize I could have played in off-campus community groups. And in hindsight, it is a regret, but [sigh] what can you do? Number two. Instead, our OP picked up chorus in high school and competed with their choir at state levels while also privately continuing to play the clarinet at home. The clarinet playing continued through chamber ensembles in college, but OP ultimately ceased playing after college. I know that's right though. To do an entirely different thing and to continue doing your first thing in private until you're just done and fulfilled, that's amazing. I like that. Number three, OP also played soccer in club leagues on school teams and in college intramural teams but did not really play again after college. That's a long stretch of sport at prime ages. I don't blame them. And I actually applaud them for doing so at all. Number four. They were in Girl Scouts from ages five through twelve, but quit as a teenager who felt they outgrew it. Valid. I remember my high school friends and I lovingly dogging on our close friend for going so far within Boy Scouts that he turned even into an Eagle Scout. Eagle Scout! Did you know that was a thing? Because we didn't. We were simultaneously proud, of course, yet so teasing at our prime ages of whatever teen years. And finally, number five. High school saw our OP sew their own costumes for the theater productions they were involved in. But they haven't regularly sewn much since then, other than some Halloween costumes here and there. Again, I'm applauding and snapping behind my microphone here. I'm 25 and can still never remember how to start a thread [knot] for any threaded project, embroidery, sewing, basic alterations. But that's to my fault of never taking a proper class and only relearning from a crash course environment once every blue moon. I feel as though sewing is a skill that once you actually learn it and practice it often, like OP throughout their theater years, you'll have it forever and a day, no matter how rusty you may get. OP's mom views these five skills as those that OP has let atrophy over time. She shares she feels like the resources she gave from parent to child over time were wasted on these discontinued hobbies. During the OP's weekend that they wrote this Reddit post, mom found one of the old musical costumes that OP had sewn for themselves, and even shared again how disappointed she was of OP that they supposedly never commit to anything. It's not true though, as OP shares they have been well committed to their marriage, postgrad master's degree, career, and home ownership. They say it's unfair that their mom characterizes them as someone who never commits to anything. At least nothing that was important to the mom. Dang. That's the post. I would say our OP is not the asshole for simply being a teenager at the time and purely existing and navigating. It sounds like our OP saw through each so-called hobby, but maybe more so organization and commitment, for multiple seasons and school years before calling it quits, all for varied legitimate reasons. I feel anyone can quit a hobby for illegitimate reasons too, just to put that out there. But yeah, OP had reasons to join and reasons to quit all the same. And you know what's coolest? Having all of these experiences in your tool belt, whether short or long-lived, or objectively skilled or unskilled within them, makes someone much more well-rounded and widely connective to the world around them. Anyway, this is an interesting story because I think from the mom's perspective, it may be less about OP's hobbies and more about her own traditional ideals surfacing. It comes off about the hobbies, but it's really rooted in job stability. OP further says in a comment that they've been at their company for seven years, but has indeed changed companies four times throughout their career, which is more times than their siblings. Heck, the longest I stayed at a company was two and a half years, and that's when I quit with no next job lined up. And I'd do it again. Goodness. This post was written two years ago, but generations are changing, let me tell you. As a sidebar to go back on this before we continue, I so disagree with the comment or I forget if it's comment or um, hold on. La Di Da. Yes, a comment. OP's mom really did share: She felt like the resources she gave from parent to child over time were wasted on these hobbies. Like, I so disagree with that. I feel as though if you are family planning and family building and family executing, oh goodness, execute makes it seem a certain way. Um, I mean like continue drawing out, like living it out. There we go. I feel as though if you are within a family unit and you are living it out, as a parent, you- you're the adult. You are the adult. You are the one with the resources, and you are the one who has all this responsibility and lived experience thus far to be able to call the shots on what happens in your family unit's life. And if you really can't give resources away to your child for their short- or long-term lived hobbies, that's on you to have to set that boundary and pivot and still make them feel heard and that they can experience life in the ways that they want, but within what you can give, within your means. The notion of being disappointed in your child for not doing the thing long enough or far enough to make your return on investment worth it, so to speak, is ridiculous, and I just unsubscribe to that, me personally, and I needed that to be known before we continue. Still, I see that their mom was probably projecting the idea of OP needing to have a quote unquote real enough job and stick with it for the company to take care of them and their family for the rest of time. Yawn boring. A good way to protect your energy and accept the idea that maybe some people will always stick to an agenda that conflicts with yours, is to put on the hat of my parents are doing the parent thing and simply want me to succeed and have a solid life. And so I will let them say whatever, and it will be water off the back like I'm a little duckling. I'm doing a lot of assuming here, and assuming makes an ass out of you and me, but this is the practice of gossip here, people. The Gossip Practice, come on. I presume OP's mom is a broken record saying what she says because that's her parent way of trying to teach her child, adult or truly child age, all the same, of adapting from her mistakes, versus passively seeing her child potentially go through life with the same mistakes and potentially feeling guilty about not doing anything in hindsight. I think everyone involved here, everyone being the two people, is both acting from a prideful sense and not necessarily seeing the other person for their motives, wants or desires. Change is the only constant in our lives. If person A wants to try to keep a control group within their job, but person B wants to try to keep a control group within a single hobby, and each person therefore has a more dynamic life in the other bucket, be it job or hobby / whatever they didn't want to control, then so be it. But even then, person A's job will switch up on them, even if they try to control it. A new coworker or boss, a new promotion, a new process. And person B's hobby will switch up on them, even if they try to control it. A discontinued material, a new technology, a new community club member who joins. Change is inevitable, and change is not exclusive to our external environments. Oh no. Change is also within us, but it takes hard work over long periods of time to not only recognize or accept internal change, but also carry it out loudly. Why? What you call your personality is likely decades of marketing and branding that your brain and body subconsciously committed to. The human brain hates H A T E S hates inconsistency more than it hates being wrong or unknowing. Therefore, once you say X, Y or Z is who I am, it will quietly filter your behavior to match that identity more consistently moving forward. The unknowing part that I mentioned is literally why we get the phrase "don't jump to conclusions." In a more primitive state, we acted on pure survival instincts. Is this plant safe or unsafe to eat? In a split second, we may remember certain characteristics of poisonous herbs to determine yes or no / I should or shouldn't eat this. And if you don't know for sure, well, your brain fills in the gaps without you really knowing to save you the mental energy. You may as well say no. Why would you risk saying yes and eating it and potentially harming yourself? That's why, in today's day and age of unreliable media everywhere, me being potentially one of them, is: it's a strong practice that we must adopt to question everything and therefore research further. Our brains are lazy because we had to survive by only using a small percentage of them (of our brains). Now that we generally need to survive less with insanely produced resources to sustain billions of us daily, we need to work the muscle of the brain in ways that we wouldn't before. I don't know who originally coined the idea of doing a brain push-up, but in my eyes, it's my dear friend in the city who calls her recalling of information without Google a brain push-up, or an uncomfortable hand exercise to do for a minute every day that is said to combat early onset dementia. That's also considered a brain push-up. I adore said friend because she also writes down curious thoughts throughout the day to Google all at once at the end of the day in a focused research session instead of interrupting her day otherwise. These brain push-ups are literal mental exercises to disrupt our mundane routines. Even the really sick, personality -full routines we think we've developed for ourselves that have actually flattened to an everyday routine because we think it's part of our identity now. That personality branding I alluded to us accidentally subscribing to over time? Well, let's try it on for size right now. Do you believe you are introverted and disciplined? Do you believe you are extroverted and ambitious? Do you know your personality quiz results like the back of your hand? Do you even know the back of your hand? I surely don't, but I was thinking about this phrase lately, so I started to study my veins and unique skin lately. Fun fact. Anyway, you were probably praised for being smart, so you leaned into it. That's a small example, by the way, of why whenever my nieces and nephews share their next academic achievements, I don't share how smart they are too much. Alternatively, I really compliment how much of a hard worker they are, highlighting the fact that their hard work got them to the positive consequences, not even consequences. Consequences has a negative connotation, but positive rewards that they got of a pizza day or a whole day to play games with their friends, or a day off, or a free pen. I hope that that helps draw out the fact that it's a cause and effect, that they worked hard, and that's why they got what they got, and not necessarily that they are smart, that this is part of their identity. But still, you, me, everyone else, we were probably praised for being smart at one time, like I'm saying, so we leaned into it. I was praised for having an old soul, being decades younger than everyone in the family, and feeling like I was too much for my peers. I silently leaned into it, honestly. You probably got embarrassed speaking up in class. Was told it was out of turn, so you leaned out of it. If you had one bad social episode, you're probably now "not really a people person." If you were picked first over and over for gym kickball because you you made a home run, is it the same in kickball as baseball? Either way, you're probably now "super into fitness." What I'm saying is at some point, people stop genuinely experimenting and rather start defending their defined character. It's all likely why we joke these days and wonder whether anyone has had an original experience. One, probably not, because we're all interconnected and humans have beautifully been humans forever. But also, two, probably not, because our screens and explore pages push out these same trends and content across generational, physical, and experiential barriers. Because our brains love consistency, we align ourselves with targeted experiences that speak to the versions of us we believe we are and therefore want to project it out into the world. Generally speaking, you act a certain way because you continue acting it out, not because that's maybe truly who you are. A large percentage of our personalities are inertia, basically. That's why adult therapy work focuses so much on the past and patterns of the past and present. One of my friends does somatic training work, and at the beginning of their educational journey, they shared an impactful lesson with me I'll never forget. People think they need to heal something within themselves, but healing implies a brokenness that needs to be fixed. We don't heal; we don't fix. Instead, we need to remember. Remember what feels good, remember what doesn't. Our goal is not to fix ourselves. We have always been with ourselves every step of the way. Our goal is to recognize our patterns and double down. If a pattern works well for you, give gratitude and continue on. If a pattern does not work well for you, work to be more mindful of your present moment so you may interrupt the pattern as it's happening and choose a different path actively. This is playtime. Our life is ours to play, explore and enjoy. We do not heal; we remember. At the core of it, our personalities are more plastic than we give credit to, and that is a powerful reframe. If identity is truly plastic, that means we have permission written in the nerves of our body to rewrite huge parts of ourselves and our lives. The reason it's not intuitive is because that means admitting the current versions of ourselves, you and me as we are today, are not a fixed being. That could mean liberation for some, but it likely means crises for many who currently find it easier to defend their character than to redesign it. I challenge us all to redesign still. It's worthwhile food for thought. It's why seeing Alysa Liu in the 2026 Winter Olympics makes me cry every time I think of her for longer than 30 seconds, honestly. Her story could be an entirely separate Gossip Practice session, but she basically thrives by embracing her brain's wiring than fighting it. The "embracement" is not a fawning or succumbing to, but to understand and work alongside. A couple of favorite Alysa Liu quotes I'm currently remembering. One, "I love struggling actually. It makes me feel alive." And two, "I connect with everything, but I'm not attached to anything." What a woman. She and a handful of other young Olympians this year have shared their refreshing philosophies in interviews about neuroplasticity being on their side. Sure, a lot of them are younger than 25 when our brain's frontal cortexes are said to finish developing. But our lives are not defined by 25 and onward. Our lives are defined by how we show up daily, hourly. So be it, if this Redditor's mom is disappointed that they supposedly didn't stick to a hobby for the rest of their lives. We are not meant to do that. We are not. We have yet to meet all the people we will love in this life at this present moment. And if that is true, then what are we doing limiting ourselves to other people's expectations for our own timelines, resume bullet points or weekly club commitments? We are meant to experience life widely for its vastness. This next month, I want to challenge you, my dear listener, and myself to pick up a hobby with the intention to quit it. Set a limited time personality point on the docks. Sign up for one, two, three classes, then quit. See how it feels. If you accidentally find the next hobby love of your life, then great. If you hated it or didn't really think it to be yours, but you had fun doing it in the moment and you were proud of yourself, even better. Let us familiarize ourselves with change, the practice of being reborn daily and the enjoyment of our own personal company because we have much to learn about ourselves yet. If you liked today's episode, please do share it with a friend as an accountability partner to our do-with -intent -to -quit challenge, for example. Your follows and comments on your preferred listening platform, be it YouTube, Apple, Spotify, and more, help us to grow. Comment or email me your thoughts at hello mangomoe at gmail.com. Was the original Reddit poster's mom the asshole? Yes or no? What is a personality trait you hold near and dear that you enjoy carrying out? What is a trait you say you have that you would actually like to switch up? Is there a skill you've long forgotten or yet to try that you want to prioritize this month? Once again, we do not heal. We remember. Until next time, XO Moe.