How to live with grace and grit | Former NASA astronaut Leland Melvin

How to live with grace and grit
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Former NASA astronaut Leland Melvin is the only person to catch a pass in the NFL and in space.

Here, he shares his thoughts on living in a state of grace and advocating for justice.

Humanity's future is among the stars and to get there, we'll need everyone's diverse talents.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
LELAND MELVIN:

A former wide receiver for the Detroit Lions, Leland Melvin is an engineer and NASA astronaut. He served on the space shuttle Atlantis as a mission specialist and was named the NASA Associate Administrator for Education in October 2010.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
TRANSCRIPT:

Leland Melvin: Grace is a way that you live your life. We all go through life and we have these different journeys and we meander in different ways in and out and ebb and flow, but grace is a way of appreciating the people that are around you, the things that are around you and how you interact with them in a way that's meaningful, that's purposeful, that's intentional. You live it in an intentional way you don't just hey write someone off and just keep moving, everyone has a purpose on this planet and we can learn something from everyone. I mean I learn something every day from my dog. I learned patience. I learn things from people that I would have never of expected to learn something the janitor or whomever it is. And so moving through life in this graceful way of embracing everything around you so.

Before I could read my mother read to me every night two books: The Little Engine That Could, I think I can, I think I can, and Curious George looking up curiosity. And I'll never forget I was this little kid on the football team, the smallest kid probably. I could run fast but no one ever expected me to play in the NFL and I never imagined to play in the NFL because I was just this small little kid. But having this never give up I think I can, I think I can mentality is a gritty way of ensuring that you're going to reach the dreams and goals that you have.

Sometimes people don't have expectations for you because they see you are from a certain neighborhood or a certain ZIP Code or whatever and you're looked at as this kid, "Well you're never going to be an astronaut because you're from that ZIP Code." And college, the SATs to get you in college only predict the first and second year success, it doesn't predict if you're going to graduate or how well you're going to do past the first and second year. So if we're going to try to build this civilization, future civilization, Mars, moon, wherever we're going to go we want to do it with as many people as we can that have these creative ideas and our diversity. And that means that we've got to make sure that we educate everyone. And I have a graphic that says you have three little boys all standing on a box, they're trying to look at the game. The little boy in the blue shirt he can't see the game because he's too short, that's equality. But justice is when you have what you need. When he gets two boxes he can see the game. One of the kids doesn't even need a box, but he gets a box anyway. So let's not be equal, let's give justice and give you what you need so that you can see the game.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
FOLLOW BIG THINK:

[groverkartikey]

saw you on "one strange rock", keep up the great work!

[Tyler_WI]

I’ve heard some good critiques of the analogy he gave at the end, just saying

[ossen]

*How? It begins with defining what values we decide to live by. Holding true to integrity is the sure way to raise our standards with everything.*

[Aeruthus]

Equality of outcome (equity) is not justice. You are taking from others who are more successful despite their shortcomings and giving to others who aren't successful.

I support a base level for everyone (UBI) because it is given to all, not just the ones that are decided to be deserving.
Andrew Yang 2020

[tubester]

What if a kid has the opportunity to study, but chooses to stop studying because its too much hard work so he decides to leave school and sell drugs instead??

[FacelessProjects]

So many people stumble upon this core, ancient Buddhist understanding from where one should derive meaning and satisfaction. They then call it whatever they want, but the important part is that people are coming to this realisation.

[Gulgathydra]

Step 1: Grace 🤪
Step 2: Grit 👿

Step 4: Game? 🏟

[MickeyThomas]

Whoever dislikes this video sucks, and needs a hug or something
👏🏼BIG THINK

[JeremyIan]

How lucky for you. All my mom ever read me before bed was the riot act

[AFGAXXI]

I have an idea, let´s all give hands, dance and sing kumbaya! And if someone doesn´t want to give us their hands let´s just cry and scream. How come no one ever thought about this?

[qqqmyes]

Grace is a spiritual word. He doesn’t even define it other than say he tries to learn from everyone he meets. That is not grace. This is one person’s general life philosophy that really does not belong on “Big Think”

[russianfantastico]

This advice is too general. I liked his points, seems like a really nice guy but at the end of the day I’d like to hear some anger you know at the fact some people have to be janitors and other people are astronauts, largely in part because of what kind of brain and genetics they have. We live in a competitive society, for the future generations there needs to be less dog eat dog, less cutting down people to get ahead. The mould on one orange corrupt and influence the rest

[chrismarklowitz]

Naive way of thinking. This is the premise that you have no limits so you just need grit and all people are wonderful and nice so we can learn from them. Which is not realistic. People can be evil and we must learn to fight. We have limits so we must learn to accept them and adapt around them.

[TheCortexReaver]

Astronaut super men guy: let's look for justice in opportunities.

Conservative: Well I never, if the poor were not so lazy, they would inherit an empire like I did from my dad Charles Emerson the Seventh!

[renragged]

Who's the chick in the beginning/thumbnail and why is she there? Click-bait?

[lukedavis]

Dear God read The Republic.

This is like if one of the characters Socrates was arguing the definition of justice was Karl Marx.