[ajju]

It is ok to give up. It is ok to come back to entrepreneurship to it if you want at some point. It is ok to never think about entrepreneurship again.

What matters is that each point you make the decision that makes sense to you.

And if you choose to look back one day, you may find that despite failing being an entrepreneur for some time helped you in ways you may not have realized or anticipated.

Either way, as you said, optimize for your mental health. All responsibilities in life seem like chains some of the time, but if your startup feels like a chain all the time - then by all means - break the chain.

[ajju]

Here’s a corollary that has worked for me and that I want to share - if, in general your startup feels like freedom - even if it has required you to work long hours for many years -(as all startups do for at least a while) - long hours that most people equate with chains - then it’s not only ok to keep doing the startup but it’s perhaps advisable - that at those inevitable moments when you do feel like a failure you don’t give up - that you give yourself enough time to try all the things you’d want to. It is ok to fail at a startup and not give up because the mindbendingly frustrating thing about startups is that even when you are succeeding you experience a lot of failure, and success rarely seems to precede at least one period that feels like utter failure.

I realize the tone of this advice may seem contradictory to my comment above, but it’s not. If a particular set of responsibilities that feel like chains to many / most people in the world feel like freedom to you - then by all means - keep enjoying the freedom, don’t let the world define it for you, and don’t give up when the roller coaster hits a low.