I’d like to share some of my thoughts with you on what I love to do during my free time: reading! Those who know me best know that I am a voracious reader. The time I spend reading a good book is never wasted time, and sharing jewels of wisdom gained from my reading adds to the pleasure.

That being said, please let me share a few golden nuggets from a favorite book of mine entitled, How Children Succeed by Paul Tough. He attributes success to three attributes: grit, curiosity and character.

By grit, he means the courage to try succeeding at something that may appear to be beyond what you think you can do. It takes courage to risk trying when you may fail, but that leads us to the second part of his definition of grit: It is the determination to pick yourself up, dust yourself off after coming up short, and to try again. Grit means being more focused on what more needs to be done and how to devise new ways to do it than feeling sorry for yourself or worried about how you look to others.

Curiosity also involves more than one dimension. It first requires wondering why someting is the way it is and how it got to be that without worrying about how much work those questions will cost you. Curiosity also inspires you to wonder about new answers to old questions, new approaches instead of ones that are tried and true, and new questions that have never been answered or maybe never even asked.

In other words, curiosity means being a pioneer, and a trail blazer. The first two qualities from “How Children Succeed” require looking beyond yourself, but the third one, Character, is all about how you view yourself, regardless of how others view you.

Of course, character is built on integrity, or honesty that permeates every part of the way you think and act. But Paul Tough associates character with optimism because when you are true with yourself and others, you believe that, whether in the short-term or long-term perspective, some positive outcome will emerge. He says that character makes you a better reader of other people’s strengths and weaknesses, and it fosters flexibility to make the adjustments required to ultimately succeed.

Just as grit and curiosity enable you to be flexible enough to make adjustments in the face of apparent failure, so, too, does character enable you to adjust to seemingly inhospitable people and situations-to turn that clichélemon into lemonade.

So, while most people associate character with firmness of principles and purpose, character at its highest level promotes perceptive reading of outside influences and reinforces the belief in your own ability to adjust to secure a positive outcome! It’s no surprise then that those we call people with character are those who possess great confidence, satisfaction and happiness!
교육상담 문의 drsuzieoh@gmail.com

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