Grit

Two weeks ago a very good friend wrote to me, “This is wonderful – perhaps some grist for your newsletter?” She included a link to J. K. Rowling’s June 2008 Commencement Address. Rowling said she had two key themes: the benefits of failure, and the importance of imagination in finding empathy. But I found much, …

Last week I saw (from the first row, and in 3-D) Disney Pixar’s Up , an animated film about life, adventure, and friendship. The film certainly pulled on my heart strings in a very “other-people-matter” positive-psychology way. The film also speaks to this month’s theme of fun and play. […]

My colleague John Buckley used to think of resilience as a suit of armour. Within the armour you feel invincible, safe in the knowledge that nothing can penetrate your defense system. It may be that resilience isn’t an extraordinary quality at all — that we all have the capacity to bounce back.

It was not an easy decision for his parents to let Blake leave high school and it continues to be a hard choice. They are attacked by critics —most of whom they’ve never met. If the Peebles had taken the expected path and insisted that their son stay in school, no one would be giving …

On a superficial level, it is easy to cast grit and mindfulness as polar opposites. One can mistakenly conclude that perseverance is an antonym for Kabat-Zinn’s concept of non-doing. To some, hooked on the adrenalin of achievement, of triumphing over one impossible goal and then another, the practice of mindfulness might seem like a colossal …