Blog 3_grit

My physical response to epiphanies that are worth investigating is usually an emotional one.  The latest thought that struck a chord had to do with grit, so I followed that for a bit.  While you may want to read the work of Angela Duckworth for some legitimate research on Grit, I wanted to dive into my own thoughts around it. In the world of athletics, the act of making up for talent with effort has been widely admired.  Many underdog athletes attribute their success to showing up early and/or staying late to get in some extra hours of training.  This is true in the working world as well.  I’m questioning this style as it pertains to career or vocation for the second half.  How long should we muscle through and force a square peg into a round hole? Contemplative practices and eastern teachings suggest “softening into the pose”, working without straining.

As a child I watched (and hopefully helped) my single mother run a countryside household. She may have wanted companionship like every other human, but she didn’t need it to help with her 1/4-acre garden, our crazy car-chasing border collie or to keep the critters or even predators out. During visits with my father, it was most often project time: fixing a culvert during a rainstorm, removing old shakes from a roof, shoveling llama poop. Of course, my pre-tech (except for Atari and pong ) 1980’s childhood provided a ton of space, creativity, competition, and play, but what I learned was, I can do anything.  As an adolescent I would have preferred to be socializing rather than weeding and pouring concrete, but I was gaining a sense of agency and independence along with grit.  None of those chores were easy and they invited me to dig a little deeper, to tap into something more substantial than the low frequency drama of the day.

I once heard the phrase “expectations kill creativity”, well, so can tunnel vision and ambition (something western culture celebrates blindly). Studying, practicing, and becoming a good engineer was not a simple task and it was peppered with emotional and psychological roadblocks.  But with a foundation of grit, I was determined to keep going, to conquer yet another difficult challenge – whether it was meant for me or not. When I told my recent boss that I wanted a new career, his response was “if you don’t feel like you are in the right place, you should leave”.  With years of built-up career-self-doubt plaque, I received this advice resentfully, but I knew it was a gift. Using grit to muscle through can cause more harm than good by blocking the natural pathways, the flow. It’s like running on a knee that hurts – your hip will try to compensate and eventually something gives, like your labrum. I enjoyed the challenging aspects of engineering but so many more were mundane and did not capitalize on my natural gifts in fact the largest portion of my career was spent letting those gifts hibernate. The process resulted in strong analytical skills and patience but when acquired it should complement my natural ability and persistence to connect with others through attention and creative intelligence.  It’s a dance between pushing and listening but also finding places of flow and ease with effort.

Dr. Duckworth says GRIT is perseverance coupled with passion…… so in a way, the passion could be the softening.  While we can be love in action and activists, like John Lewis we best do it with respect and poise. If we add in the Japanese idea of Ikigai – we weave in what we have offer the world (less straining) and what the world needs. BINGO.

I wonder if my new love for poetry has to do with softening into the pose, I think we can be wild and gritty while soft, perhaps when we are in touch with our Roots as Lucille Clifton captures here.

Listen to my new favorite narrator talk and discuss Lost, by Davis Wagoneer.

Quote taken from Brain Food

Rafal Nadal:

“One lesson I’ve learned is that if the job I do were easy, I wouldn’t derive so much satisfaction from it.” I get it. I wonder if he ever softened into the pose, or it that’s what he’s going to do now, like me.