I was overwhelmed by shame when I quit grad school. Now I’m a quitting guru | Julia Keller

I thought that dropping out made me a failure, but it was the making of me as a journalist and writer

First came the sobbing - a great gust of tears that successively overwhelmed my shirt sleeve, an entire box of tissues and an extra-large bath towel. Next came a prolonged period of sitting cross-legged on the floor and staring blankly into space while a single question - infused with equal parts sorrow and self-pity - tolled in my head: What will become of me?" At last came the desperation-fuelled gesture I dreaded beyond all others: I quit.

I was certain that dropping out of graduate school, and giving up the teaching appointment that funded it, would ruin me. Surely it would mark me as a snivelling loser, a lazy bum, a spineless coward. But I had no choice because my misery was so acute. (And I was running out of towels.)

Dr Julia Keller is a journalist and the author of Quitting: A Life Strategy