When in your opinion can a person really give up on himself? At what point can he say that it's not worth even trying?

Probably when it’s causing more physical harm than good, then it’s time to call it quits.

I think the attitude you’re describing is that of a depressed person. No one is “a true loser” or “good for nothing” unless he accepts that self-description.

@CWOTUS come on, have you never come across losers? People who have managed simply NOTHING, done NOTHING right?

Sure, of course. But that’s not a reason for a person to give up on himself. Read the back story behind Abraham Lincoln, for example. There was a loser if there ever was one. Who would have expected anything from him?

“A man may fail many times, but he is not a failure until he begins to blame someone else”
-Steve Prefontaine

This is a very interesting question. The only people I’ve read about that had this mentality were a few serial killers that felt that they could not be rehabilitated. The drive to harm and kill was still strong, despite years in therapy, that they knew there was no hope for them and that society would be safer if they were dead.

Never.

@ZEPHYRA : I’ve been at the lowest point a person can go where there was no moving on. There was no light. There was no hope. I have been to the brink twice, and each time I was brought back ever so slightly by the touch of a friend. I was brought back just enough to see that maybe today, just maybe, there was something worth going on for.

I can state from personal experience that there are no true losers.

Hope knows no limit.

I’ve met a good number of people who have given up on whether they have value or not. Some of them have just decided that the effort is no longer worth it, and that the best thing to do is just do what the system dictates without question. They’re the tired, beat down people living in their sleep that Thoreau talks about.

Not so much losers, no, but people who have thoroughly and unquestionably accepted the status quo, and might even fuss to maintain an unhealthy status quo because they’ve given up on change, growth or the possibility that things can be better. They’re the ones who say, “That’s the way things we have always done it or This is the way things have always been,” in response to any new idea. They’ve given up and don’t see their efforts as having any impact—only expedite effort to maintain the status quo. They’re everywhere…...! The actual living dead!

I consider these people more ‘dangerous’ and soul-sucking than anyone who experiences actual depression. Those with true and all-consuming depression are not losers, I agree with @hawaii_jake—they are people who are experiencing something psychologically traumatic that others can’t access.

When he loses everyone. When he becomes a pariah in his own right.

@linguaphile

Well said!

There is a difference between accepting our limitations and giving up, a BIG difference!

Acceptance is liberating, giving up is self defeating.