Grit (Angela Duckworth)

I read this book per recommendation, and I have to thank the person who recommended it. When I first decided to read it, to be honest, I was somewhat skeptical of how novel or useful the book would be: I expected it to just be another book preaching the importance of perseverance and hard work, valuable—but well-trodden—wisdom. Before reading this book, I thought I knew what “grit” was. Turns out I didn’t.

Duckworth’s definition of “grit” encompasses not only perseverance/effort, but also one’s ability to commit. That is, not only how passionately and effortfully one approaches an activity, but also how long and steadily one can continue to pursue it despite the allure of other novel interests. According to Duckworth, many more people struggle with this commitment aspect than do with the effort aspect—which is quite true for me.

Luckily, it seems that my fluid interests are still excusable with my age. At age 18, I feel like I’m in a good place. I’ve avidly explored a pretty wide range of activities and I think I’ve found what kinds of things excite me. I know I want to have an intellectual career where, put very vaguely, I get to balance quantitative and qualitative problems—where I get to combine my literary spirit with my analytical inclinations; that’s why I’ve always been attracted to chemistry, economics, etc., where I feel that “perfect balance.” I also want to have a career with a direct societal impact, which according to Duckworth is a universal desire—a yearning for purpose.

I’ll be spending this upcoming summer continuing to look for my calling—a daunting goal, perhaps, but one that I’ll be leaping into with enthusiasm. One of my specific goals is to put in some “dedicated practice,” as Duckworth describes it, into improving my coding skills. “Dedicated practice” is painful for most, according to Duckworth, except for a lucky few… perhaps I’m blessed, but I guess I’ve learned to “love the burn.” Or, more accurately, I find unproductivity viscerally torturous.

By the way, I’d like to recommend this book to every high school student. The current college admissions system pressures students to have a clear sense of identity, to have already developed a sense of purpose—clarity of being shines through in the essays, in the extracurriculars, in the interview. I feel like this is quite a lot to ask of a high schooler. The best of us develop a sense of grit, perhaps, in being committed to our clubs, and can perhaps become somewhat adept at effectively leading our peers, but only the most precocious of us have a clarity of purpose.

I feel like Duckworth offers a clear picture of just how much a high schooler should expect from themselves. The goal of high school is to perhaps explore our interests, not necessarily to build a concrete idea of the career we desire, but what kind of work we’d like to do. By providing a more realistic goal for our identity-seeking journeys, this book can really give high schoolers a better guide to growth.