A funny video gives us one of the most important life lessons: How to know when to give up

Life is not a fast race, but a slow marathon. This means that to go far, and in the best shape, you need to maintain a certain balance, knowing when it’s time to pick up the pace, when to slow down or even stop to regain strength. However, maintaining this balance is difficult, especially when it comes to emotions.

The emotional investment trap

One of the deadly traps in which we tend to fall is the emotional investment. In practice, we do not want to abandon a project, a relationship or any other thing to which we are linked, simply because we have invested time, energy and feelings in this.

It is a very common trap in the business world. One has invested so much in a business that even if this does not work and generates losses, the person refuses to recognize it and continues to invest in it unnecessarily.

This also happens in the field of relationships. Many people think they have spent so many years together that makes no sense breaking the relationship. They believe that will lose this “emotional investment” and therefore remain stuck in a relationship that destroys them and takes them away the desire to live.

This short video shows, unequivocally, that sometimes we do not know when it’s time to stop and continue obsessed with our goal, not realizing that we are sacrificing our lives in this. The video also shows the enormous influence that habits may have in the decisions we make, so we prefer to cling to these rather than change.

Stop in time it doesn’t mean “failure”

Although we associate the word “surrender” with failure or the lack of will, the truth is that sometimes it is the most intelligent decision. We need to know when we can continue to invest emotionally and when it’s time to stop. If we are not able to recognize this point, we can destroy our life, literally.

Fortunately, there are some signs indicating that maybe it is time to change the course:

1. The expected results are more and more distant. If you are giving the best of yourself and work hard since long time but the results you were waiting are everyday more distant, perhaps you need to reconsider your goals and the path taken.

2. The sacrifice you’re making is not worth it. Each goal is usually a challenge, and to realize something that is really worthwhile you need a certain amount of commitment and effort. But everything has a limit, so if the sacrifice you are doing is huge, maybe you should ask yourself whether it really makes sense to keep going on.

3. The circumstances have changed. Sometimes you can be so absorbed in a project or in a relationship that you lose the sight of the whole context and do not realize that the circumstances have changed, thus continuing to strive in vain. So, from time to time, we should stop and re-evaluate the feasibility of your goals.