Good bye Harvard. Hello Angela Duckworth.

Christine Merser, April 29, 2025

A week or two ago, Barbara C. wrote me that the only word she focuses on every day is Resist. It resonated with me. I wrote about it, and I think about it every day. Persist.

But what I’m coming to realize is that in order to be able to persist over and over again, each and every day, I have to develop some kind of resilience. Shelter from the storm? A way to compartmentalize? Something.

Persisting is action, and I sometimes find it exhausting, and I need some sort of sustenance to be able to garner it and bring everything I can to the actions that I’m taking. My best self. Fearless. Energetic.

How can I sustain what is clearly going to take a while? And then I remembered. Ah ha! My new best friend Harvard, who I wrote about just last week and we’re very grateful to for standing up so well, is giving a free class online.

You won’t believe it.

Building Personal Resilience. Using proven psychology philosophies. Breaking down challenges using the five core components of resilience. I had no idea there were five core components of resilience. I took the course last night.

Harvard lays out the five components like they are ingredients in the cookies I do not bake myself. Flour. Sugar. Brown sugar. Chocolate chips. Assemble and bake.

Like I’m just supposed to read “self-awareness” and immediately ascend into some higher emotional plane.

Maybe Harvard students can pull that off. Maybe when you’re in the Ivy League, you don’t need anyone to say, “First, do this… then do that… and here’s a sticker if you do it right.”

But me? I went to the University of Nebraska.

I need laminated instructions. I need a checklist. I need a coach yelling from the sidelines, “YOU’RE DOING AMAZING, SWEETIE!”

And now, here’s my personal walk through their five very elegant “core components”:

H: Self-awareness. My takeaway? Just be aware!

Have you met me? I once went to give a speech wearing two completely different shoes, not even close in color, and it was well before I could blame it on an early dementia diagnosis. Just be aware? I’m speechless.

H: Self-regulation. My takeaway? Manage your emotions!

Oh my God. Like it’s something tucked away in the drawer, between sweaters and pants?

Oh wait, hold on — let me just pull out some self-regulation.

Second piece of pie? Oh no, I’m self-regulating, but thanks anyway.

Who are you people? I should’ve known Harvard would not be my tribe.

H: Mental agility. My takeaway? Stay flexible in your thinking!

Are you an idiot? Everyone thinks they are flexible in their thinking. Everyone! That’s the f’ing problem. I can see I would not have lasted a day at Harvard. Thank God for the U of N. Go Cornhuskers!

H: Optimism. My takeaway? Believe good things are possible!

I’ll give you that one.

Although honestly, I think it needs an adjective in front of it right now. Hopeful optimism? Prayerful optimism? Slightly-panicked optimism? Be hopeful, but know it’s not just going to happen. It’s going to take a revolution.

Either way, I’m with you on this one. Thank God, because to be honest, I don’t have four hours to throw away on an elite philosophy that has no instruction manual on how to put together the most complicated piece of furniture ever assembled.

H: Self-efficacy. My takeaway? Trust yourself — you’ve got this!

Oh, you arrogant people.

You really haven’t thought this one out.

This isn’t trusting me to handle it.

This is distrusting half the country to stand up to it.

Would that I could personally fix it all for everyone.

But this — this is so much bigger than that.

So much bigger than anything you’re teaching in this course, which frankly wasn’t even worth the money you didn’t make me pay for it.

And that’s when I realized. Grit. I remembered a TED Talk by Angela Duckworth on grit. Grit. Grit and Resilience. I thought it was great … for her. I wasn’t in need of resilience back then. I was resting on my paunchy laurels.

So, I went and rewatched it. Six minutes of fabulous Angela. (Versus four hours of Harvard? Run the numbers.)

Nailed it.

So Duckworth decided she wanted to know what made people succeed? In anything. IQ? Physical strength? She traveled far and wide. West Point cadets. Spelling Bee winners. Rookie teachers in dangerous neighborhoods. Salespeople at big companies.

It wasn’t social graces. IQ. It was grit.

Grit, as defined by my new best friend Angela, is passion and perseverance for very long-term goals. Sticking with your future goal day in and day out. Live like a marathoner, not a sprinter. (Danger, danger. I am a short-distance runner, and a good one. Not a marathoner.)

In the end, she gave me what I need. The push I needed. I can change when I know how. I can break it down. I will understand and remind myself every day that a failure is not a permanent condition. It’s temporary. I think I never really believed that. I do now.

“You don’t have to win today. You just have to still be standing when today ends. And then do it again tomorrow,” is my version of her lesson, which I have written on my refrigerator door.

The fight we are in isn’t about emotional polish.

It’s about getting dirty.

It’s about bruising our shins and ripping our sleeves and still crawling toward the light. It’s something you build the old-fashioned way — by falling down, and standing back up, over and over again.

Let’s talk reality. I have not been someone who has lived my life with grit as my middle name. Show me a wall one foot high, and I pivot to something else. And yes, I’ll work on it. I’m working on it now. But what I’m telling you is that you can not depend on me to fix this. #SorryHarvard

But it’s time we call to action the ones who do have grit. Caitlin Clarke kind of grit.
Trenches in your veins kind of grit.

WANTED
People with grit to lead people with passion.
To bring down a regime that will destroy the world if we don’t stop it.

No application needed.
Just show up.
Anywhere. Everywhere. Every day.

No pay.
No comfort.
Might die.
We’re not totally sure yet.

But if we win?
Billions of years from now, someone will still be here to thank you for your service.