One sees great things from the valley; only small things from the peak.—G. K. Chesterton

Near Vidette Meadow. Kings Canyon

There is an essential quality required for success in life. It’s not intelligence, good looks or even talent. It’s grit. What is grit? Grit is not the sandy grime at the bottom of your boots, it’s the ability to keep going—despite adversity—to overcome setbacks and rise again and again. It is the strength born from struggling to do something, to do anything and call it your own life. How do you get grit?

Modern writer Polly Campbell believes that grit comes from our passions. She writes, “Our passions are generally things that inspire us and drive us to improve. The  learning process, therefore, becomes rewarding in its own right.” She suggests that when you are on a path that you’ve hewed out yourself, you are more likely to stick with it, to persist and to persevere.

Ralph Waldo Emerson called this Self-Reliance, and he wrote beautifully about it long ago, directing readers to get know themselves and find their own paths. He writes, “A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the lustre of the firmament of bards and sages.”

But what do you do when life sends you a tornado, a marathon bomber or an avalanche? These events knock you down, literally. They are the kind of setbacks that make you want to give up and live under a bridge (or take a desk job that you don’t believe in). But these are also the moments when you can decide to live an authentic life. If you aren’t living one already, it will become quite clear. You might want to throw in the towel, and maybe you should. But for people on the right path, it’s time to get gritty, to push on even when you feel like quitting. By staying the course, you’ll grow and get stronger. This is when you become a solid individual, a compassionate friend and a thoughtful community member.

For inspiration while soldiering on, Emerson wrote the beautiful essay, Compensation. On my own dark days, I’ve read it again and again. Emerson’s words have a way of lifting my mood, in the most challenging of circumstances.

When it’s all said and done, if I could give anything to a person, it would be grit. But grit can’t be given, it has to be earned.

Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror. Just keep going. No feeling is final.—Rainer Maria Rilke

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Friday’s Fun – Though we travel the world over to find the beautiful, we must carry it with us or we find it not.—Ralph Waldo Emerson

Ralph Waldo Emerson

Emerson is the original American naturalist and the first transcendentalist. He considered nature and the universe inseparable from the human soul. Outdoor lovers and independent thinkers who haven’t yet read him might consider his influence on the father of our national parks, John Muir. Muir met Emerson for the first time in Yosemite Valley, a place many of us know and love. On the arrival of Emerson, Muir wrote:

“When he came into the Valley I heard the hotel people saying with solemn emphasis, ‘Emerson is here.’ I was excited as I had never been excited before, and my heart throbbed as if an angel direct from heaven had alighted on the Sierran rocks.”

It’s safe to say that Muir carried beauty within him wherever he wandered.

Learn why Muir and many others were excited to meet Emerson, and check out Emerson’s inspiring essays, “Self-Reliance” and “Compensation.”

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