There’s a kind of grit that most of us find when life gets hard. “When the going gets tough, the tough get going” — you know the drill. We cruise along until we hit a pothole that completely destroys an axle, and then we realize it’s going to take some hard work to make it down the next stretch of road. I’ve definitely had seasons that required me to drive slowly and grip the wheel with both hands, limping my way to a proverbial repair shop.
But there’s also a kind of grit required when the road is pothole-free, but the view is boring. This is what most of life feels like to me, honestly. As a person who craves adventure at every turn, but mostly finds my days filled with joining the same Zoom meetings and sitting in the same coffee shops and pushing start on the same treadmills. It takes guts to show up to an ordinary life with your whole self.
Both of these require “staying power” — the ability to stay present in the pain and in the mundane. It’s a gift worth cultivating.
But in a bootstrap society, we’re pretty familiar with grit, with hard work, with trying and trying and trying again. There’s another kind of power that matters, too.
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