When it comes to how we fare in the marathon of life, effort counts tremendously. - Angela Duckworth

Purpose — the intention to contribute to the well-being of others

A calling is not some fully formed thing that you find," she tells advice seekers. "It's much more dynamic. Whatever you do — whether you're a janitor or the CEO — you can continually look at what you do and ask how it connects to other people, how it connects to the bigger picture, how it can be an expression of your deepest values.

One biographer describes Darwin as someone who kept thinking about the same questions long after others would move on to different — and no doubt easier — problems: The normal response to being puzzled about something is to say,"I'll think about this later," and then, in effect, forget about it. With Darwin, one feels that he deliberately did not engage in this kind of semi-willful forgetting. He kept all the questions alive at the back of his mind, ready to be retrieved when a relevant bit of data presented itself.