Little Boxes

Jenny Henry | April 2015

I recently read a friend’s blog post where he compared life to a series of kits that we receive to help us achieve each milestone. Some of us, he argued, due to the inequity of life find that we’ve failed to obtain the proper kit at the proper time, the tools we need to help us take on the next challenge. We are woefully unprepared for the challenges thrown at us.

At first I agreed with this philosophy, there definitely is an unfairness to life that keeps pulling some of us under the current. Perhaps if I had been given the proper kits at the proper time then I wouldn’t have struggled through life at various intervals. But as I continued to contemplate it I began to wonder if perhaps the idea of the kits, the tools themselves being given out to those most fortunate is in fact an error in perception. Perhaps only those that have struggled are the ones truly prepared. Maybe I’m indeed in better shape to take on life’s challenges than most.

The adage that the grass is always greener on the other side of the fence seems to be a true one. Humans have always coveted what their neighbor had, and Americans in particular seem sensitive to both noticing what others have but also struggling to keep up with those who have the best, the most, the largest. We constantly compare ourselves to others.

I’m going to argue that life isn’t unfair. Life is life. That’s how it works, it is what it is. Some of us get more challenges to life. Some of us experience abuses, sorrows, difficulties. Others experience only joy, wealth, happiness. I can’t agree with the claim that those who had the most difficult path to adulthood are the least prepared for life. They may have greater difficulty with engaging in proper social interactions, they may find they are academically lacking to have an easy path to college. What they do have though, that their peers do not, is grit.

There’s been a lot of discussion lately surrounding the topic of grit, both in classrooms throughout the country, and also with regard to adults and how to become successful in your endeavors. There have been TEDtalks galore on the topic. Psychologist Angela Duckworth from the University of Pennsylvania is the creator of the Grit Scale. She studied people placed in various challenging situations, including young students, and determined that the greatest indicator to future success has little to do with intelligence, but much more to do with how people are able to persevere after a struggle.

I argue that those that received the neat college kit from their parents and teachers are the people most likely to arrive at school without a plan of any kind of their own. They don’t know why they’re there, they have no final goal, and they’re not paying a dime toward the cost themselves. They have no incentive to do well, no goal to work toward. I would argue that the odds of these people dropping out of college would be much higher than those who didn’t receive a kit and had to put themselves through school to achieve their own goal.

I argue that the idea of a marriage kit is a myth. With divorce rates as high as they are and arguments over who should be allowed to be married and under what circumstances, I think we’re still figuring marriage out in this country as a whole. I also will continue to push the idea that those that have grit, those that have struggled and won are the most realistic about the likelihood of a successful marriage, place a greater value on intimacy, and are less likely to give up on their marriage when conflict arises. They’ve conquered conflict before and won. Our country seems to have evolved it’s expectations from the idea of couples ‘starting out’ in the 1950’s and living simply instead to the idea that couples must begin their life together with everything, the expensive diamond, the big wedding, the tropical honeymoon, the giant house, the good careers, the two new cars, the 2.5 children. I think it’s this idea, this concept, that my friend confuses for a kit. It’s a belief in a preparedness kit that doesn’t exist, in anyone’s reality, but rather a fairy tale that so many believe is out there. As soon as reality intervenes these couples break down. They lack the grit to make their way on their own. They can’t problem solve together.

Being handed these kits as rites of passage is wonderful, and I’ll even consider that for some they’re an absolute necessity. But I hesitate to say that those without them are at greater risk of failure, will accomplish less than their counterparts. I feel there’s a real lack of personal responsibility that comes with holding on to the idea that someone else is responsible for providing you with the tools to become who you are. Perhaps I received more filled kits during my lifetime than my friend did. But I don’t want to compare my kits with his. I fear that this constant comparing of ourselves to others does nothing more than diminish a bit of that grit that we so desperately need.

I’ll argue any day that if I’m struggling the people that I’m going to seek out are those who have grit. I want the friends who have struggled, who have battled their own demons to help me battle my own. I want to talk to someone that truly understands conflict, that understands sorrow, that understands what it feels like to be uncomfortable in your own skin. If I’m indecisive, if I don’t know which direction to take, I want to find the friend that knows all of the alternate routes to get there, who won’t simply tell me to take the direct path.

We shortchange ourselves when we rely on other people to mold us into who we become. It is our experiences, our struggles that are our own, they make us who we are. When we choose to overcome the horrors, the injustices in the world, we then choose to make ourselves indestructable.