That term ‘grit’ popped up again the other day, and I recognized for the first time in a while that I don’t really have it. Not entirely. There is a wonderful Forbes article that speaks to the 5 key characteristics of grit. In that article it argues that grit includes optimism and follow through. While I have both, the tank is too low to fully realize it.
Maybe I am like my car. There’s this torn axel boot that is leaking transmission fluid and I don’t have the means to fix it at this point. More to the point, I cannot deal with the changes to my life needed in order to fix it. As a result the car is not running right. Still, it is running and doing what it needs to.
Fix the car. Fix the man?
Some Thoughts:
- Ultimately we are responsible for bettering our human race by having kids and having those kids represent the best version of themselves (and of us by default). Needless to say that a lot of our time and energy defaults to this endeavor. It is then some wonder that we have managed to steadily screw it up.
- Of course it is due to these devotions that we surrender time for ourselves and our friends and become, in a sense, slaves to the work of raising kids and neglect to raise our grown up selves.
- While I am eating better, healthier, etc. I have hit a weight plateau that I don’t know how to get past.