That’s right—I said it.
For me, giving up became a key to learning how to live with Young Onset Parkinson’s Disease.

Before I explain what I mean, let me give you some background.

I was diagnosed with Young Onset Parkinson’s Disease in February of 2021, after about a year of increasingly noticeable symptoms. By the time my neurologist finally said the words, “You have idiopathic Parkinson’s Disease,” it didn’t come as a shock. I had researched my symptoms so thoroughly that my phone had already decided I belonged to the Parkinson’s demographic—right down to targeted ads and class-action lawsuit pop-ups.

Still, even when a diagnosis isn’t a surprise, it can shake your world.

One of the hardest parts for me wasn’t just the physical symptoms—it was the loss of control.

For nearly 24 years, I worked in pharmaceutical distribution, spending the last eight as an Operations Manager. In one fiscal year alone, my building handled over $3 billion in shipments. Control, compliance, and risk management weren’t just part of the job—they were everything. If you didn’t control the variables, you didn’t stay in business.

That mindset didn’t disappear when I left the industry in 2014. Control had become part of my identity.

So when Parkinson’s entered my life, it collided head-on with who I believed I was. Suddenly, my hand tremored without permission. Panic and anxiety—things I had never experienced before—became daily visitors. No matter how intense my professional stress had been, I had never known anxiety like this.

Every day felt like a battle between my desire to control my life and a condition that refused to be controlled. I would stare at my trembling hand in frustration. Frustration turned into anger. Anger gave way to hopelessness.

Those were dark days.

Two quotes helped pull me out of that place.

The first came from Michael J. Fox:
“With gratitude, optimism is sustainable.”

That sentence stopped me in my tracks. Parkinson’s had taken a lot from me—but not everything. Gratitude reminded me that optimism wasn’t something I had lost; it was something I could practice.

The second quote came from an unexpected philosopher: Rocky Balboa.
“It ain’t about how hard you hit. It’s about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward.”

It echoed something a friend of mine—a sports mindset coach—once told me: You can’t always control if you get hit in life, but you can control how you respond and move forward.

That’s when I decided to give up.

Not give up on life.
Not give up on hope.
But give up the illusion that I could control everything.

I stopped focusing on what happens to me and started focusing on how I respond to it.

And in doing that, I found freedom.

Freedom not just from the constant fight with Parkinson’s—but freedom that extended into every area of my life.

So sometimes, giving up isn’t failure.
Sometimes, it’s the first step toward winning.