I remember from childhood the cliche “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.” I don’t remember learning the second part of it, “Then quit, there’s no use being silly about it,” so I keep trying at difficult tasks. After talking to a college professor about their students, it’s easy to believe that the second part of the quote might have prominence now, give up and don’t be silly about it. I would argue that there are plenty of reasons when the first half should be emphasized.

Examples for persistence include practice and skill building. If they’re learning to play the oboe part of a Mozart sonata, an oboist would accept that the first try is not going to be the best. A cook trying to make a souffle would accept that their first try might even deserve to be labeled a disaster. My grandmother’s special chocolate cake is very difficult recipe to get right but we love it enough to keep trying. The recipe even includes a note that, if it sinks in the center, “fill up the hole with extra frosting.” However, the “traditional” caramel frosting that she always used is a lost art.

In a business, “then quit” is definitely not the motto of the best employees; they will be persistent. Inventing a new candy bar can take a lot of not-succeeding. (See the History Channel’s The Food That Built America for examples) Designing the perfect ultrasonic dental retainer cleaner is not going create something to market on the first try. Failure is part of the process. The mistakes might even be the ideal experience for the next success.

In some situations, not succeeding is a requirement. A sales call might fail for 9 out of 10 pitches, but the 10th will be a success to make up for the nine prior disappointments. Applying for a job is probably not going to succeed on the first resume sent out. One can even get to a first interview, or perhaps several interviews, and still be rejected. That’s not a reason to give up.

With technology and computer services, the tool might not do what you want. The ideal would be a system that offers “What You Get Is What You Want” (WYGIWYW). This motto implies that the developers of the tool are aware of its roadblocks. When a user gets stuck, having a way forward makes a product better. Perhaps a word processor like LibreOffice is difficult to set the page size correctly for someone new. A smart photo frame might not be easy for grandma to locate images of her new great-grandson. With the open-source photo editor GIMP, it may seem impossible to replace the blue sky with something more dramatic.

These situations, “then give up” is perhaps better advice at times, with the caveat that giving up usually means start on a new road, not turning off the engine. When a tool assumes that users need a level of technical background to use them, how do the users learn to become proficient? When you want to adjust your slide show to use a different background theme, it might not be obvious how to do that. With technical expertise, you can search the menus and the internet and figure it out. For others to get what they want, it might not be obvious. When the TV menus are not cooperating, an online tutorial might not be available instantly when the menus to find Casablanca.

If you don’t have a level of proficiency, how do you learn what you need? Technology developers can think creatively about how to match the difficulty of using a tool to the skill of its users. Perhaps giving up is a good course of action, but, giving up should mean, look somewhere else for the solution, not throw the remote across the room.

Inventors should have anticipated your situation and made it easier not to be silly about it.