It's perfectly fine to quit when your dream has become near impossible to achieve.

With the spread of motivational influencers pressuring everyone to die trying to fulfill their dreams I feel like it's important to say.

I have spent the past years chasing a dream (winning a national championship in my sport). But I have a difficult job on the side. I started this discipline just 6-7 years ago. And I'm starting to get older. My competition are young, they have practiced ever since they were kids and they are students in the best school by far for my discipline.

For years I have left my personal life aside, I've spent an unhealthy amount of time, money and energy training, sacrificed relationships, flying to the other side of the country, getting injured all while having being brutally fired from my job.. all for what? Having finished at the bottom of the rankings in every tournament against guys that I know are FAR better than I am, have way more resources than I (the best school and teachers and way more time than me) and gotten home with no medals.

Yet I have friends telling me all the time from the comfort of their room "oh you should persevere, don't quit! Quitters don't deserve shit". I disagree. There are circumstances where it's perfectly understandable and even the right choice to make, when the juice isn't worth the squeeze anymore.

Tldr: It's healthy to persevere and believe in your dream even when everything around you is screaming to quit. But it's also healthy to know when to step down when you have basically no chance of fulfilling it at all and the chase becomes just a waste of every resource you have.