Don't give up the ship
On sharp claws, two million years of practice, and why it's only human to keep going after good things long past when other predators would have given up
Human beings are members of an elite class of animals, known as the persistence predators. We’ve made our way to the top of the food chain not by having the biggest teeth, the sharpest claws, or the most sensitive noses. We’ve done it by having the ability to keep going when chasing prey and not giving up.
■ The ability to outlast what we chase is so deeply embedded in our physical nature that it undoubtedly has an effect on our psychological makeup. Our ability to pursue long-term goals is something that is so necessary to our physical survival that it must influence how we think, as well. We can’t be the product of nearly two million years of evolution without our brains having adapted -- at least somewhat -- to staying occupied and mission-oriented.
■ It’s hard to escape the conclusion, then, that people who lack the ability to persist after a goal have either had it beaten out of them or have chosen to abandon it based on social influences. Those who give up too easily are denying something about their very nature as humans.
■ What causes people to give up prematurely rather than to embrace the long war? There are too many things that need to be done that take persistence, but ultimately end up in enormous reward: It simply doesn’t make sense to deny this one thing that nature has given us that we have evolved to be the very best at doing in the whole animal kingdom.
■ Biology makes persistence our superpower: It’s what got us to the top of the food chain. And it lodged something special in our brains that we have to be smart enough not to abandon in our social affairs with other humans. Some worthy goals take a long time and volumes of persistence. Giving up isn’t in our nature.
