Recently, I've been reading Grit, by Angela Duckworth. It has me thinking a lot of thoughts.
First off, it's taken me a while to download and read it because of some of my own misunderstandings of what grit is (it turns out that I pretty much agree with the way that she defines it). Also, it took a while to read because, in the past, I have been guilty of thinking that I lack grit, and I didn't want to read something that would only confirm that, or only confirm some of Western Culture's most pervasive myths that I don't actually agree with.
Turns out, her understanding of what grit is and how one can develop it is different from what I expected; it's less dependent on the cliche of pulling oneself up by one's bootstraps, and more on feeling and finding one's way into a purposeful life. I still disagree with her assumption that career and academic success is the primary reason (or should be the focus of research) to measure grit or try to improve it (which I will delve into more a bit later, perhaps in another post).
Second, there are a few (actually lots of) lines in the book that I highlighted, bookmarked (I'm reading this in iBooks on my phone), commented on--almost all in relation to what I have learned about sensitive nervous systems over the past three years. Some quotes are enlightening, some are problematic, but it's impressive when a pop psychology book packs this much wisdom.
It turns out that I'm pretty gritty by Duckworth's standards. I mean, I haven't actually taken her evaluations, but I've got a lot of the stick-to-it-iveness that she talks about in certain areas of life (in others, perhaps not so much, or perhaps they just distracted me from my top-level goals and so I moved away from them). I'll delve a little deeper in the next few posts.
First off, it's taken me a while to download and read it because of some of my own misunderstandings of what grit is (it turns out that I pretty much agree with the way that she defines it). Also, it took a while to read because, in the past, I have been guilty of thinking that I lack grit, and I didn't want to read something that would only confirm that, or only confirm some of Western Culture's most pervasive myths that I don't actually agree with.
Turns out, her understanding of what grit is and how one can develop it is different from what I expected; it's less dependent on the cliche of pulling oneself up by one's bootstraps, and more on feeling and finding one's way into a purposeful life. I still disagree with her assumption that career and academic success is the primary reason (or should be the focus of research) to measure grit or try to improve it (which I will delve into more a bit later, perhaps in another post).
Second, there are a few (actually lots of) lines in the book that I highlighted, bookmarked (I'm reading this in iBooks on my phone), commented on--almost all in relation to what I have learned about sensitive nervous systems over the past three years. Some quotes are enlightening, some are problematic, but it's impressive when a pop psychology book packs this much wisdom.
It turns out that I'm pretty gritty by Duckworth's standards. I mean, I haven't actually taken her evaluations, but I've got a lot of the stick-to-it-iveness that she talks about in certain areas of life (in others, perhaps not so much, or perhaps they just distracted me from my top-level goals and so I moved away from them). I'll delve a little deeper in the next few posts.
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