There is nothing inherently wrong with quitting anything. Quitting anything doesn't make you a bad person. Persevering does not necessarily make you a good person.
I've started and quit many things. I quit trying to learn to play the guitar, or to read music, and I've put learning Esperanto on hold for so many years now I think I can safely say I quit doing it. I don't see it as a good or bad thing; it's just a decision.
The question is whether or not I want something enough to persevere long enough to learn it to the level I find acceptable. No one else judges what that level is, that's for me to decide, as it would be for anyone. Some people want to be able to play a song or two for their friends or family on a guitar, some dream of stardom. Whatever floats your boat.
In answer to young dude with the serious case of butthurt, I honestly think that's on him. In my dojo at least, we're all pretty much family at this point. We've all been through a lot together. We've lost students who passed away, moved away, became seriously ill due to things like cancer and heart disease and bad knees and hips and so on. We've had people just stop showing up. Some of them we're still in contact with in one form or another, and we are still on friendly terms with a single exception of a person who burned their bridges on the way out. That's ONE person, in all the time I've trained there. If former students drop by (and sometimes they do, like to say hi or come to our annual Christmas party), we're happy to see them. We miss them. We wish they'd come back, but if they can't or don't want to, we don't judge them or stop being friends with them. It is what it is. The things that made us like that person are still the same, nothing has really changed.
We do like to laugh and joke about the people who leave and we see them all the time and they earnestly tell us they're coming back any day now, mainly because it's so common to hear. We tease them about it, good-naturedly. It's nothing to get upset about.
Most students quit, eventually. A few of them get to some place they wanted to get and move on. Hey, great. I don't know most of the reasons some leave. Sometimes I don't even notice for awhile, because people often skip a week or more, so it's hard to tell when they're going. We don't have contracts, so if they don't show up, we're not looking for money from them.
If you want to quit, by all means quit. If it's not for you, it's not for you. If you want to do something else, do something else. I originally posted to encourage the student who wanted to continue but found it difficult. Many people face adversity. There are many ways of overcoming it. I would encourage anyone who really wants to train to push themselves to do so. But if they want to quit, no problem.
Maybe this comes from my background in the military. I know lots of people who tell me how they wanted to join, but this or that got in the way and somehow it just never happened, and so on. I get it. But here's the thing. Wishing you'd done it isn't the same as doing it. You did it or you did not do it. You served or you did not serve. Doesn't make anyone a better person for serving or a worse person for not serving. But you're either a veteran or you ain't one. Getting butthurt because you decided not to join and now feel excluded from the veteran's club? Well, don't know what to say. Do or do not, as Yoda said.
As to those dancing around with the usual commentary about training for self-defense and not some mystical mumbo-jumbo, I say fine. You do you. I started training for that reason, among others, but I found something else along the way. I'm not going to apologize for it. Too bad if you don't care for it. I like the art as an art. I see value in training to train, and for my own mental, spiritual, and emotional well-being. I find that my training informs nearly every aspect of my life. If it doesn't for you, hey, cool. I get it. It does for me. So lay off.
