TOTAL READ TIME: 4 Minutes
My first addiction developed at age twelve. Coming home from school, straight when I got off the bus, I’d grab a snack then switch on the heavy knob on the television (if you heard the satisfying “click” of the knob in your head just now, thank you).
My eyes were glued for the rest of the day. I usually watched two PBS kids shows then turned to sitcoms. I begrudged that 60-minute period when only news was on (national and local). Then game shows, sitcoms and prime time shows until homework and bed. I had memorized what was on every channel (we only had four) and had every day of the week planned out.
As a parent today, I now know my parents felt hopeless as they watched my curiosities and outer world dissolve. I had been stolen by another world.
My parents became desperate and creative. Out of the blue, my parents gave me a challenge: stop watching television for one whole year, then we’ll reward you with $500 cash.
FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS? As a twelve-year-old in the 1980s, I had no choice but to say a wholehearted yes!
I don’t even think it was that hard – or if it was, I forgot. Each day with the knob turned off, I stepped back into this world and back into a kid. I read books, colored, played, walked, explored, then played some more. I laughed, I talked and I smiled.
When that 365-day mark came around, my parents gladly gave me five hundred dollars in exchange for my full-color life. What did I do with the cash? I contemplated buying a television as a poor prank to my parents, however I was smart and bought my first computer. It was the late 1980s, and having a computer was instrumental for me, at a time when they were just getting into homes, schools and businesses.
Have you ever done something bold, scary and a little uncomfortable? I bet you have. How did it transform you?
The success I had at age twelve gifted me with grit.
Ah, you know it too.
This grit makes itself known when we need to tap into it. Grit is like a pebble stuck in your shoe but you ran the race anyway. Grit is like that coarse sandpaper that hurts as I type that sentence. Grit is not wanting to be proven wrong. Grit is not wanting to fail.
Grit is you wanting to prove it to yourself above anything else. For an inspiring display of grit, watch the movie “Nyad” on Netflix, the true story of Diana Nyad and her historic swim at age 60 from Cuba to Florida. Then let that inspire you to be the star in your own movie of grit.
Grit is why humans haven’t gone extinct. (Well, grit and love. Please reach out to me if you think something else deserves a spot on this list.)
Thank you, grit. You’re right there in the bottom of my shoe when I need you the most.