Late Bloomers: The Power of Patience in a World Obsessed with Early Achievement

by Rich Karlgaard

Be careful, however, that when you repot yourself, you’re not running away from something. Recovery programs call endless repotting “doing a geographic.” You blame all your problems on the people you’re with, believing that if only you had a fresh start in another city, things would be different.

People who dare to leave their unhappy lives behind give themselves permission to pursue their passions and find a renewed zest for living. Our right to new beginnings, to self-definition and self-determination, has always been among the most foundational of human ideals.

Paul Ricoeur, a French philosopher who wrote extensively about narrative and identity, defined agency as the opposite of suffering.

Grit, or our ability to persist, increases as we age. As you can see from the graph’s horizontal axis, the most persistent adults were in their late sixties or older. The least persistent—well, they were in their twenties. This doesn’t mean that if you’re in your twenties, you don’t have the capability to gut it out or endure. Many twenty-somethings do. It just means that your ability to stick with something important will likely increase as you age.