GRIT
Grit
A soldier is a great example when talking about the subject of grit. Makes me think of two pictures that I was looking at recently of my Dad, one when he was 18 years old as a new recruit in WW2 still with his boyish looks and another of him as a seasoned sergeant after he'd been in for a while. It was such a change that you could visibly see the growth and experience that he wore in his confident demeanor.
There was no boy left, he was all man and looking in his tired yet still young eyes, it was obvious that he’d been through a lot. You can really see the grit of having been through many battles. Not just on the field but as a young man going off to see the world through the rigors of war and the trial and tribulations that entail. He had no idea what he would be involved in and what he would see, much of it, he would not talk about. I don’t know the exact trip he took but being from the Midwest, I imagine after a short training camp they took the new recruits by rail to San Francisco then shipped them out to the South Pacific.
From further reading about the conflict, he and his brothers were about to jump into the biggest battle of them all and that was coming back alive. He fought in New Guinea which is a large island in the South West Pacific region off the shores of Australia. The kill rate was about 80% as MacArthur threw his men at the opposing force. I imagine that when the bullets weren’t flying and while consuming rations that they thought and talked about home. As they looked at photos of Moms, Dads, and girlfriends they wondered what they were going to do when the war was over. Any challenge would have to seem easy after that.
Getting back to the subject of Grit. . . In regular civilian life, metaphorically, grit doesn't mean you necessarily have won the war. To me, it means that you’ve been through many battles with the scars, experience, and a knowledge base to carry to next battle as lessons learned. In that way, if you have been fighting the good fight, you probably have grit and more than you know. I say that because often times we forget that we do have grit by letting circumstances or others dictate how we feel about ourselves.
Whether we are listening too much to that negative voice inside or letting others define us by their words and attitudes toward us. Either way, we forget that we’ve been around the block a few times and we’ve seen a few things and been through some tough battles of our own. It may not be the kind with bullets flying thankfully because of the sacrifice our military makes every single day but it’s still a challenge with struggles to overcome.
We should no longer care what others think and their opinions, because we should know in our hearts that we do in fact have great value. As long as we bring our A game or best effort to the arena, we will always find a place that we can add value and contribute in a positive and useful way. This is because of the grit we carry forward that is part of us, embedded in our personality. It’s your own personal medal of honor that can’t be taken away, it’s you, it's your worth, guard it, refuse to let it go and most of all, be proud of it!
It’s your GRIT!
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