Meaningful work and purposeful learning environments foster enthusiasm for challenges and a mental outlook that embraces difficult problems with relish and resilience. Carol Dweck refers to this as a growth mindset.
Instead of withdrawing from setbacks or blaming others, people with a growth mindset go toward the obstacle and experiment with new strategies, even at the risk of looking foolish, feeling clumsy, or failing. The unwavering hope of a growth mindset is that the up-and-down process of figuring things out leads to mastery and develops intelligence.
Therefore, Dweck asserts that teachers can cultivate a culture of wise risk taking by openly discussing how practice becomes proficiency. “Such discussions encourage students not to be ashamed to struggle with something before they are good at it,” Dweck said.
As we advance in years, life abstractly shows up as our greatest teacher, and “such discussions” emerge as self-talk.
When circumstances perplex us or barriers won’t budge, perhaps the teacher is leading us toward a higher level of growth; “when we are no longer able to change a situation we are challenged to change ourselves,” Viktor Frankl said.
“It is just such an exceptionally difficult external situation which gives man the opportunity to grow spiritually beyond himself,” Frankl continued.
Perseverance helps us become people of purpose whose gentleness of spirit is communicated through kindness. Trials endured with a growth mindset strengthen stakes – deepen spiritual roots – so our sacred core is braced and unbreakable, yet outwardly we serve with hearts tender toward humanity.
Life asks us questions, and our work is to create meaningful solutions. When our intelligence is stretched, faith challenges us to lean in and tap into different skills and qualities.
Sometimes wisdom does not bounce off the page; we have to see into the sentences. The meaning is not always obvious in the moment, the teachable truth is not immediately apparent in the narrative.
Moral imagination asks us to be still, hold the facts in our mind, and widen our gaze.
Bring in different lenses. Try different frames: What could patience prove here? Is self-control needed in this story? Where do we feel peace, find joy?
When we look slightly askew, the real thing might come into full focus or fall right in front of us.
Instead of pushing for a quick answer, perhaps the wisdom is to wait.
And if the wisdom is to wait, then the question is: What to do while waiting?
It is not a time for passive escape but active refusal of worldly pollutants that provoke foolish pursuits.
Waiting is deep, courageous work, a searching of the soul and testing of the heart. Trust is the shovel that unearths anxieties so they are known but not chased, that reveals words implanted which sprout into wise paths followed and new ways forged.
Let us, then, be up and doing,
Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, “A Psalm of Life”
With a heart for any fate;
Still achieving, still pursuing,
Learn to labor and to wait.
