The Outliers

“Success is a function of persistence and doggedness and the willingness to work hard…”
~ Outliers: The Story of Success by Malcolm Gladwell

How much of success comes from ability, and how much of it comes from attitude? Of course, some tasks require ability more than attitude, but not many. In fact, I can’t even come up with an example where ability was more important than attitude.
I agree with Gladwell, attitude is a big part of succeeding. Of course there are so many things that you really don’t want to do (homework, for instance) but you have to anyways. So you force yourself to start. But after a while you relax, and might even begin to have fun. Perhaps if students were to get rid of their negativity towards homework (myself included), you’d get a lot more children getting good grade and doing well in life.
Try telling that to my sister.  At age eight, she already struggles with getting homework done. It’s not that she’s dumb. She just hates sitting still long enough to get anything done. She even aces all her tests. We always joke that I’m the brains and she’s the brawn (I doubt you’ll ever meet an 8 year old as fearless as her. Just don’t tell her I said that). But honestly, she’s really smart. She had to start school a year late because of a problem learning to speak. She kept at it and learned how to speak, though it was later than most kids. And then in first grade, she had a hard time learning to read, she kept at that too, and one day it just clicked and she could read. I may really hate her sometimes, but I admire her persistence in well, everything. She was so sick as a baby, we nearly lost her, but she pulled through, and now I have the Queen of the Underworld living in the same house as me. I should mention that one of the first things she learned to spell was her name, which is no mean feat. She’s named after the Greek goddess of spring, who is also the queen of the underworld, Persephone. You would not believe how proud she is of that.
I’m not sure if this counts as persistence or doggedness or if it’s just dumb luck, but my family seems to be a magnet for trouble. There have been two cases where the company my dad works for crashes and burns, plenty of incidents where he gets laid off, and plenty more where health benefits are dropped or cancelled right when we need them. But mom and dad always find a way through it, they always make money stretch just a bit further, find ways to eat at home instead of going out. They are my inspiration. They may not always be cheerful about it, but they push till they can’t push anymore, and them they’ll find a new way to push through the problem. Our family is very close, we may fight a lot, but I don’t know what I’d do without any of them. Dad and his stories from before he had kids, mom and her seemingly infinite wisdom, and my sister with her pure little-sister evil.
Most, if not all of success comes from attitude and not ability, don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. If I tried harder, if I put forward a more positive attitude, I could reach that goal of a 4.0 GPA so I could take auto shop, I could learn Spanish so dad would let me learn Russian, I could do almost anything.
Why don’t I? Honestly, I have no idea. I guess I better start taking my own advice.