When do you bail?

    This afternoon Justin and I had lunch with our friends Nick and Drew.  Without being specific, we were talking about how difficult it is to stick with a commitment that doesn't seem to be generating any fruitfulness in our lives.

    I'm not saying that we ought to depend on the things we do to give us soul level satisfaction, because then we'd just be flakey, fair weather friends with no real sense of commitment to anything.  Throwing in the towel when things are hard is like saying, "Actually, I was just in it for me, and now it's not working out for me, so see ya!"  I don't want to be a consumer.

    But on the other hand, how do you know when to quit something that's harmful?  How do you distinguish between the pain that means you're building muscle and the pain that means you're straining muscles?  I am always suspicious of my motives when I want to quit something that is hard, but I'm beginning to wonder if that suspicion might just be a hindrance to moving on to something healthier.

   So how does this work?  How do you tell if you should hang on or let go, especially when you don't want to be guided by your feelings?