Grit

An acquaintance of mine posted this article on his Facebook status. Something about the word "Grit" caught my attention and I read the article right away. It's fascinating.

It’s the single most famous story of scientific discovery: in 1666, Isaac Newton was walking in his garden outside Cambridge, England - he was avoiding the city because of the plague - when he saw an apple fall from a tree. The fruit fell straight to the earth, as if tugged by an invisible force. (Subsequent versions of the story had the apple hitting Newton on the head.) This mundane observation led Newton to devise the concept of universal gravitation, which explained everything from the falling apple to the orbit of the moon.

There is something appealing about such narratives. They reduce the scientific process to a sudden epiphany: There is no sweat or toil, just a new idea, produced by a genius. Everybody knows that things fall - it took Newton to explain why.

Unfortunately, the story of the apple is almost certainly false; Voltaire probably made it up.

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2009/08/02/the_truth_about_grit/?page=1

Grit is the ability to trudge through things. Don't complain, don't whine, don't flit from one approach to another. As Nike would say, "Just Do It".

Too often in my life I search for the perfect approach or dabble only on the surface. I know a little about a lot of things. I've started and never finished thousands of things. Grit is the ability to start and finish. Less breadth, more depth. Specialization, if you will.

"Perfect" is the enemy of "good".

My focus the past three weeks has been "grit". Grit at work. Grit at home. Stick with things. Dedicate the time necessary to solve the problem. Don't try to do too many things, just do something well.

As a result, I've been telling more people "no". I've spent more time alone. And I like it.