to continue or to quit

i have recently stumbled upon this question on several occasions:
'should i continue or should i quit?'
it has been ingrained in {i think} most of my generation that quitting leaves you 'unqualified or unprepared at a time of opportunity' {winston churchill}. this is most certainly true. while i'm not sure that the opportunity comes for everyone--i do think that persaverence is a virtue and should be taught to all.
but i must protest the notion that it is a universal mistake to quit something good. whether in talents, relationships, or work. it is a choice of paths and you must choose the one that is right. it has been my fear that should i choose one path, that every day i continue down it, i shall wish i was running back to the fork only to start on the alternate path.



i encountered this paradigm when i made the choice to discontinue to pursue violin ambitiously. it was one of the happiest times in my life when i decided i wanted to go all the way. i was practicing millions of hours a day and enjoying every bit of it. i still miss that feeling. i was so happy to work hard and i knew it would get me somewhere. but i started to wonder if there was a difference between getting to that somewhere and being at that somewhere. i still can't quite decifer whether it was wanted because i loved working for it, or because i wanted to arrive at a goal. i came to the conclusion that for the timing of my life, i couldn't do what someone else wanted me to do for so long that i never got the chance to do what i wanted to do. reflecting back now, i see that i was choosing to continue because i was afraid of not being that violinist. not being so devoted it shocked people. not being what i possibly wanted to be. but as parminedes has recently taught me: not-being does not exist, only being. to choose to continue out of a fear of quitting is a mistake. no one can ever say 'what might have been.' who knows what is {right} between two {good choices.}

i do know that it is part of growing up. giving up. but i wish to insist that to quit is not always a mistake. it is a choice. and can very well be a good one.