Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseverance

sole meunière
was indeed a revelation. But her
epiphany was that classical French cuisine was divine, 
not
that she would become a chef, cookbook
author, and, eventually, the woman who would teach America to make coq au vin in their very own
kitchens. Indeed, Julia’s autobiography reveals that this memorable meal was followed by a
succession
of interest-stimulating experiences. An incomplete list would include countless delicious
meals in the bistros of Paris; conversations and friendships with friendly fishmongers, butchers, and
produce vendors in the city’s open-air markets; encounters with two encyclopedic French cookbooks
—the first loaned to her by her French tutor and the second a gift from her ever-supportive husband,
Paul; hours of cooking classes at Le Cordon Bleu under the tutelage of the marvelously enthusiastic
yet demanding Chef Bugnard; and the acquaintance of two Parisian women who had the idea of
writing a cookbook for Americans.
What would have happened if Julia—who once dreamed of becoming a novelist and, as a child,
possessed, as she put it, “zero interest in the stove”—had returned home to California after that fateful
bite of perfectly cooked fish? We can’t know for sure, but clearly in Julia’s romance with French
food, that first bite of sole was just the first kiss. “Really, the more I cook, the more I like to cook,”
she later told her sister-in-law. “To think it has taken me forty years to find my true passion (cat and
husband excepted).”
So, while we might envy those who love what they do for a living, we shouldn’t assume that they
started from a different place than the rest of us. Chances are, they took quite some time figuring out
exactly what they wanted to do with their lives. Commencement speakers may say about their
vocation, “I can’t imagine doing anything else,” but, in fact, there was a time earlier in life when they
could.
A few months ago, I read a post on Reddit titled “Fleeting Interest in Everything, No Career
Direction”:
I’m in my early thirties and have no idea what to do with myself, career-wise. All my life I’ve
been one of those people who has been told how smart I am/how much potential I have. I’m
interested in so much stuff that I’m paralyzed to try anything. It seems like every job requires a
specialized certificate or designation that requires long-term time and financial investment—
before you can even try the job, which is a bit of a drag.
I have a lot of sympathy for the thirty-something who wrote this post. As a college professor, I also
have a lot of sympathy for the twenty-somethings who come to me for career advice.
My colleague Barry Schwartz has been dispensing counsel to anxious young adults for much longer
than I have. He’s been teaching psychology at Swarthmore College for forty-five years.
Barry thinks that what prevents a lot of young people from developing a serious career interest is
unrealistic expectations. “It’s really the same problem a lot of young people have finding a romantic
partner,” he said. “They want somebody who’s really attractive and smart and kind and empathetic

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and thoughtful and funny. Try telling a twenty-one-year-old that you can’t find a person who is
absolutely the best in 
every
way. They don’t listen. They’re holding out for perfection.”
“What about your wonderful wife, Myrna?” I asked.
“Oh, she 
is
wonderful. More wonderful than I am, certainly. But is she perfect? Is she the 
only
person I could have made a happy life with? Am I the 
only
man in the world with whom she could
have made a wonderful marriage? I don’t think so.”
A related problem, Barry says, is the mythology that falling in love with a career should be sudden
and swift: “There are a lot of things where the subtleties and exhilarations come with sticking with it
for a while, getting elbow-deep into something. A lot of things seem uninteresting and superficial until
you start doing them and, after a while, you realize that there are so many facets you didn’t know at
the start, and you never can fully solve the problem, or fully understand it, or what have you. Well,
that requires that you stick with it.”
After a pause, Barry said, “Actually, finding a mate is the perfect analogy. Meeting a potential
match—not the one-and-only perfect match, but a promising one—is only the very beginning.”
There’s a lot we don’t know about the psychology of interest. I wish we knew, for example, why
some of us (including me) find cooking a fascinating subject, while many others couldn’t care less.
Why is Marc Vetri attracted to creative endeavors, and why does Rowdy Gaines like sports? Aside
from the rather vague explanation that interests are, like everything else about us, partly heritable and
partly a function of life experience, I can’t tell you. But scientific research on the evolution of
interests has yielded some important insights. My sense is that, unfortunately, these basic facts aren’t
commonly understood.
What most of us think of when we think of passion is a sudden, all-at-once discovery—that first
bite of