Persistence is Beautiful

There is something to be said about not giving up. There is a beauty in persistence. You never know who or where you will see it. As I was reading Grit by Angela Duckworth I saw a passage about the persistence of someone who knits. How they had grit. Many people start to knit but they never finish their first sweater or scarf, etc. Then I thought about my mother-in-law. I’ve never thought of her as a persistent person with grit. But she does knit. In fact she knits a couple dozen sweaters a year and gives them out. It takes her about two weeks to knit one adult size sweater. One day as she was knitting she had about six inches of sweater started and she started to pull it all out. She said she wasn’t happy with it. I asked her what she meant. She said that she wasn’t enjoying herself while knitting that sweater. Now I have to say all her sweaters are beautiful and I couldn’t imagine not being happy with it. I also thought how could she not enjoy herself with one particular sweater over another one? They are all the same, aren’t they? I never could get a straight answer from her as to what made her enjoy a sweater. I wish I had now with hindsight as I write this blog so I could give you the answer. But I do know that the next time I saw her she had done it again, pulling out a sweater she had started. This time she said that she wasn’t happy with the way the colors were lining up between the body and sleeves. Then it dawned on me. She is a master at her craft and strives for perfection. She was very persistent in her pursuit and over the years had learned to know what she wanted when knitting a sweater. She had gone well beyond just doing it as a hobby, it was a lifelong obsession. We could all learn something from my mother-in-law who has been knitting for ever as far as I know. Her persistence creates the most beautiful sweaters, that she simply gives away. Her only reward is seeing how happy the receiver of her sweaters are. Persistence is beautiful.