Grit

One thing that I have realized is that a lot of poor people have greater resilience compared to much of the population. My theory is that expectations for someone who comes from a poor environment are much lower. They look at the suffering and hardship in their life and attribute it to lacking certain resources. They know their life is difficult because they do not earn enough, do not have certain opportunities, or cannot provide a particular standard of living. They can resolve that in their head by saying, yes, my circumstances are tough because I lacked something. That explanation creates resilience because it gives meaning to what is happening. A lot of people lose that when they move up in life.

Think of how many people from well-off families end up depressed, on drugs, or taking their own lives. We act shocked, asking why someone with so much would do that. We do not understand what is actually happening.

I think it is tied to expectations. If I am well-off, I expect my life and experiences to match that. I expect things to go smoothly. I expect happiness because my environment seems designed for it. When life does not deliver that feeling, you start thinking something is wrong with you. Why aren’t you happy in a place that should make you happy? That thought turns inward and starts attacking your sense of self.

Some people eventually realize their expectations and the things they were chasing were false. That is when you hear wealthy people say money is not everything. And those of us with less look at them confused because we assume money should fix all problems. That perspective is something you only understand once you experience the other side. But it also destroys resilience. The very things we work hard to gain often weaken the qualities hardship built. You enter a world where you no longer have the protections you learned from growing up with less.

Then people start creating artificial versions of hardship. You see wealthy people isolating themselves on mountains, joining programs where they sleep on the streets, or taking on extreme hikes. They are trying to recreate the hunger and drive they lost.

It makes you wonder what we are actually searching for. Do we really want a soft life, and will it give us the goodness we are chasing? Or is there something better we should be aiming for, something that makes our experience of the world more meaningful?