I was tricked into thinking I had “grit”

I was tricked into thinking I had “grit”
secondbreakfast.co

It is not about trying hard. It is not about working long hours, giving your best, persevering... it is about finding things you enjoy doing, context in which you shine, people who appreciate you. When a person is given a chance, they will try hard - not because they should, but because they enjoy it.

It doesn't always work and sometimes you need to just push through. But mostly, I can't imagine working hard at something I don't find joy in.

To me, "grit" requires adversity instead of simply overall breadth. It's quite easy for us humans to do something if everything is going well.

What about when it's not going well? Do we have enough to persevere through all times, including hard ones? Your startup is failing? Your research is yielding no fruit? You can't get that promotion even though you've tried 3 times in 3 years?

Pushing through adversity and continuing the grind in the face of simply giving up is better defined as "having grit".

The problem simply is, maybe it is all just a waste? But that's not having grit!

Under the author's premise, you should be trying 1000% at all areas of your life all the time. Unrealistic.

There are countless good examples of course; off the top of my head:

- Darwin neglected his medical studies, to a point his father sent him elsewhere to become a parson (priest). All while pursuing his interests, and slacking off occasionally.

"Darwin spent the summer of 1825 as an apprentice doctor, helping his father treat the poor of Shropshire, before going to the University of Edinburgh Medical School (at the time the best medical school in the UK) with his brother Erasmus in October 1825. Darwin found lectures dull and surgery distressing, so he neglected his studies. He learned taxidermy in around 40 daily hour-long sessions from John Edmonstone, a freed black slave who had accompanied Charles Waterton in the South American rainforest."

"Darwin's neglect of medical studies annoyed his father, who shrewdly sent him to Christ's College, Cambridge, to study for a Bachelor of Arts degree as the first step towards becoming an Anglican country parson. As Darwin was unqualified for the Tripos, he joined the ordinary degree course in January 1828. He preferred riding and shooting to studying. His cousin William Darwin Fox introduced him to the popular craze for beetle collecting; Darwin pursued this zealously, getting some of his finds published in James Francis Stephens' Illustrations of British entomology. He became a close friend and follower of botany professor John Stevens Henslow and met other leading parson-naturalists who saw scientific work as religious natural theology, becoming known to these dons as "the man who walks with Henslow". When his own exams drew near, Darwin applied himself to his studies and was delighted by the language and logic of William Paley's Evidences of Christianity (1794). In his final examination in January 1831 Darwin did well, coming tenth out of 178 candidates for the ordinary degree."

- On technology there are too many to count I guess? Bill Gates halted his undergrad at prestigious Hardvard. Or Elon Musk "In 1995, Musk commenced a PhD in energy physics/materials science at Stanford University in California. Eager to pursue opportunities in the Internet boom, however, he dropped out after just two days to launch his first company, Zip2 Corporation."

Perhaps you could redefine Grit as ability to endure pain or keep motivation when you have worthwhile goals in mind (if you want to just adapt the word). Perhaps courage is a better word. To give up when you need or push through when you need.