I recently found an extraordinary technical co-founder for my company, after years of trying every possible strategy. He's 100 times more creative, passionate, expert and an ideal fit for me personally and from a business perspective then others I'd met before, a friend I've known for years and seemingly popped back up out of the blue after I stopped trying and was ready to give up on the whole thing.<p>I've heard this advice of "give up" and it comes for years.<p>Give up on trying to find love and then you get the partner
Give up doing a million interviews and then you get the job
Give up trying to cure your alcoholic and your partner decides to go to AA on their own<p>I'm assuming this has something to do with the principal of "non-attachment" or not putting out a vibe of neediness, but it's still curious to me. Wondering if there's more to it than that.<p>Or possibly, it's just odds that a high percentage of people who had given up after trying really hard, got something. And then they wanted to share their story.<p>And is there any way to enforce this state? Seems pretty hard to give up on something as a means to get it, so there's an inherent paradox.
There's a common pattern in storytelling.<p>Act 1: Hero wants a thing. Hero puts in all their skills and effort. Things get worse.<p>Act 2: Hero sacrifices everything and consequently loses it all until they run out of things to sacrifice.<p>Act 3: Hero recovers.<p>The transition from Act 2 to 3 is when they listen to what a mentor said in Act 1. Oh this mentor was right all along.<p>A tragedy is usually defined as someone who didn't listen to the mentor. A comedy is when a bunch of people didn't listen to each other and got into deeper trouble until they realized the truth.<p>I love the Overcoming the Monster plotline. It's a reversal of Tragedy. The Monster is usually superior, but they made mistakes and refuse to admit it. What differentiates the Monster from the inferior Hero was the Hero was willing to admit her mistakes.<p>What comes from giving up is usually a form of humility, often subconscious. You accept that your successes aren't from your ideas or your individual efforts. You become more open to trying things that change your identity and kill your ego.<p>Character development only happens with a form of death, letting go of who you were. Graduation ceremonies are a form of funeral - you are no longer a top student, you are now unemployed. A wedding celebrates the death of single you and the birth of married you.
Very simply, the brain is always a flurry of biochemical and bioelectric signaling, even when you're thinking of "nothing". When a person is trying to do something, they focus on the subject or activity, pathways in the brain light up and neural connections strengthened. When a person stops consciously focusing, the brain doesn't "shut down the system" so to speak. Activity triggered by the active work continues to happen, but in a less organized way. That activity is can end up making connections to ideas the conscious thought process had not even remembered existed.<p>That's how solving problems happens after "giving up", and this is well-documented in cognitive studies. It's called the "default mode network"[1] and it's possible to learn to activate it.<p>As for your example "Give up trying to cure your alcoholic and your partner decides to go to AA on their own", that's an entirely different mechanism, involving human social relations and self-interest. I don't have a good explanation, but have you ever been in a situation where someone told you to do something that you knew was good for it, but you resisted doing it? Maybe you justified your refusal as being skeptical, or just didn't like being told what to do.<p>1 <a href="https://www.wired.com/2014/08/shower-thoughts/" rel="nofollow">https://www.wired.com/2014/08/shower-thoughts/</a>
I usually think this revolves around coming to terms with reality. For example, when you're actively looking for a something (like a cofounder, soulmate etc) you have a mental list of what this person "looks like" or the skills they need to have. When you find someone you match them up against this list of requirements that you created. Inevitably they won't have every skill or characteristic you _think_ this person needs to have so you'll pass.<p>BUT when you stop actively that list of hard requirements goes away. You've given up looking for the unicorn that you invented and now when you find someone close enough you're willing to "settle." That settling isn't because you didn't find the unicorn, it's giving into the reality that the unicorn didn't ever exist. As the philosopher Sir Michael Philip Jagger said, "...But if you try sometimes, well, you just might find you get what you need"
I wonder if it isn't that we try to make something happen by a mechanism that doesn't work. And we keep trying, and it keeps not working. And as long as we keep trying it, it's going to keep not working, because the mechanism doesn't work.<p>And once we quit trying the flawed mechanism, we allow other, more normal mechanisms to start working.
I've always suspected it's a way to shut people up. If you give up on something, and still don't get it, and complain, well then we can just point out that you didn't get it because you didn't <i>really</i> give up on it.<p>Suppose it's true anyway: what's the value in getting the thing if you don't want it any more?
When you meet people with the goal of finding love, the other person will naturally distrust your intentions: How much of your interest is in them personally, and how much of it is lust or the desire to not be alone? When you click with someone platonically first, the interest is much more trustworthy.<p>You can't convince someone to break an addiction; The more you push, the more it hurts them and the more distance it creates between you. They'll even start lying to you just to keep the peace. Any desire to change must come from within, and must not be met with expectations or conditions. They need a comrade, not a guardian.<p>There are some things you're better off not trying to control.
By giving up, you end up underestimating the demands. That's how you get what you want. However, this "desired" is much worse than the initial expectations.