I was going through my notes-to-self over the past, piecing
   forgotten things together, and I've noticed my pattern. One line
   puts it together for me that I wrote a good dozen years ago or
   so.

   Apparently I was writing a list of "Things I've done / Things
   I'm good at" and one of them was, "You always find a "hook" to
   hang your happiness on". It definitely helps. Looking back, I
   can see that the environment I was raised in (the pop psychology
   of the day) was the beginnings of the self-esteem movement and I
   was lucky to have had a few teachers who ascribed to that way of
   thinking.

   The direction things are going are a little more in the
   direction of, "Well, no, you can't do it yet, but let us help
   you and eventually you'll get there" - a bit of a dependent
   philosophy - I need to find the influential author who wrote
   about Grit - but as it's been sweeping the US education system's
   way of thinking much like the self-esteem movement did when I
   was growing up, I'm watching it with a cautious eye.

   Perhaps more grit and less self-esteem is better? I don't know.
   But time will tell.