God, Goals and Extra Grit: How I turned tragedy into the triumph by finding EXTRA Grit.

Everyone has grit and this is how I found that extra grit. At the recommendation of my Prep For College Writing instructor, Professor Amanda Murphy, I watched Angela Lee Duckworth's TedTalk presentation on Grit. This video and the assignment connected to it, inspired in me the desire to share something with you about my life. I never thought to call what I had and what I would learn, Grit, but Ms. Duckworth gave a name to something intangible. The one thing you have to understand as we begin is that at 44 years of age, I was fortunate enough to marry the woman of my dreams. After several failed relationship choices, I had arrived at the conclusion that Love was not something the world needed. From being married at 21 to divorced at 26 and back to married again at 29 and that relationship lasting 7 years I knew it was time to do some self-reflection and repair of my love meter. Deep down inside I knew that my thinking was not only false about love, it was erroneous because it took grit to recognize the woman that would prove me wrong. Her name was Tonja and my journey to extra grit had begun. Both of us having been born to and growing up under very unusual family dynamics, and along with strongly faith based home environments we were both taught to not only believe in God, but to also have faith that you can always make it through any challenge.

After meeting Tonja, we started with the challenge of the physical distance between us, which was something we knew we would have to overcome. During our courtship, Tonja and I made plans to move from California to another state. Where you ask? We did not know at the time, however, by the time we were married she was living in San Francisco and I was in Bakersfield. Now if you are unfamiliar with the unique geography of California, those two cities are roughly 280 miles apart. While living in separate cities, there were times when we could not see one another for weeks. It took every ounce of grit we had to not only stick though the “connected loneliness” but I also found that this distance unknown to me at the time, would be like the seeds to the grit I would need in the very near future.

My final challenge and the full manifestation of the extra grit would come very soon. After settling on Phoenix as our home city. I moved first and found a great place in Central Phoenix.

 Two months later, I would drive to San Francisco, load up the moving truck with my new bride and her things and begin the 750-mile journey to Phoenix. It took not only grit to make that drive but also a great deal of gas, yet we made it. Our wedded bliss would only last 9 months. Unexpectedly while I was away on business I received a call that Tonja had gotten sick from something she ate at a Native American Pow-Wow she attended just one day earlier. As I awaited to board an emergency flight back to Phoenix to be by her side in the hospital, I received the call that would allow me to locate grit I did not know I had. The caller on the phone said these words: “I’m sorry she didn’t make it…” As the tears streamed down my eyes and the blood drained from my face, I stood motionless in the Fresno Airport Terminal. I had to summon every grain of grit I had, every ounce of grit I developed in my life and I had to dig deep and locate that EXTRA GRIT sown when I really was not looking. This extra grit would be just what I needed to being the next phase of my journey leading up to my attendance at GlendaleCommunity College. What often looks like loss and despair could be the mining tools we need to locate grit we did not know we had. I was happy being married, doing a job that I loved and living in the home we shared.

Lastly, as we hiked up a Superstition Mountain's "Treasure Loop #56" the week before Tonja passed, she said to me, “Rodney, I want you to do more; I want you to go higher and help more people.” After I made my arguments as to why I didn’t feel I had it in me to do any more than I was already doing, One week later, God and Tonja would assist me in their own special way, by helping me find the grit I didn’t know I had. I must say, Thank You God for blessing me with Tonja.

Is that what friends are for?

Over the last 40 plus years I have had many experiences all of which assisted me in forming the beliefs, opinions and prejudices I have. These experiences have also assisted me in crafting my understanding of the words FRIEND and FRIENDSHIP.

The Oxford Universal Dictionary defines FRIEND as coming from the Old Teutonic word frijojan meaning to love or ‘One joined to another in mutual benevolence and intimacy’. And FRIENDSHIP is defined as: The state of being a friend; association of persons as friends; a friendly intimacy.

I have come to realize that the vast majority of the people in my life are not actually my friends but are simply associates, acquaintances or just simply needy people. Many years ago one experience in particular helped me to understand something about friends and friendship in general. I had known the person on the other end of this learning experience for about 6 or 7 years at the time and I considered them a friend. Over the years we talked, ate, traveled, struggled and worked together with very minimal challenges. I would even occasionally take this persons car to get it washed and even buy them a meal when buying my own meal on those days we would be working with our team late into the evenings because I thought that is what friends were for.

Well I will spare you all of the minute details of the situation that occurred and tell you that it ultimately resulted in this person manipulating a situation to get money from me. During the “mediation” or more like “negotiations” because I was unwilling to just “pay up” the conversations became very intense and from my perspective I felt that the way this person was seeking to get money from me had not only crossed the line (because I was present when another plan to get money was being hatched) but was a violation of what I thought friends do, besides after all of the rides to work I had given this person, free computer assistance, car washes and meals purchased this is how you treat me? In this meeting I began to make it clear that I was unwilling to budge just on the principle of how friends should treat one another and then the “mediator” asked me a very powerful and thought provoking question…he said: “Rodney so are you telling me that you wouldn’t do the same to him?” and I replied “no sir!” and then the “mediator” said: “Well just because that’s the kind of brother [friend] you are, does not mean that’s how someone else has to be .” Simply POWERFUL! That statement or better yet wisdom immediately caught my attention and I had to submit. He was right! Just because my way of being a “friend” or my understanding of how “friends” treat and respond to one another is absolutely that…my way and no one else is compelled to accept or adopt my way. But was this love? Was this “One joined to another in mutual benevolence and intimacy”? I would say not.

That situation not only helped to change my understanding of what a “friend” is it also assisted me in reevaluating the people in my life as well as the role they play. Most of these people have been downgraded to associates, some I no longer have a relationship with and a very small group I would even consider a “friend”.

John 15:12-13 “This is my commandment, That you love one another, as I have loved you. Greater love has no man than this: that a man lay down his life for his friends.”
If we are unable to lay down, pride, ego, envy, distrust, malice, hatred of self, fear and all other disempowered behavior and attitudes how can we be called a “friend” and say that we are willing to lay down our lives?

“Friends” do not intentionally deceive or bring harm to another. “Friends” do not manipulate and control one another. “Friends” do not call only when they “need your help” nor do they “just check in on you “when something is wrong in their life and they want to dump it on you.

Face the facts they are not your “friend” if you are keeping them around then they are most likely your “crutch”, “feel better about yourself person” or “abuser”. And if you cannot or are unwilling to change the relationships you have with these kinds of persons (not to mention if you are this person yourself) then the chaos in your life will continue as it has for as long as you have known this person or persons.

You see, two people joined together in mutual benevolence and intimacy is what friends are for!

Now go use somebody else and let me be…I need to make room in my life for “Friends”.

What about you?