My Way or The Highway

All about stubbornness and determination

Hi Zan, Hi Pa

Volume #45

July 25th, 2025

HI, PA: I’ve been thinking lately about stubbornness—the reasons people are stubborn, the weird things they’re stubborn about, and the ways that manifests in various relationships. So for starters, would you consider yourself a stubborn person?

HI, ZAN: Is the Pope Catholic, as we used to say. Yes, I’m stubborn, but I think there’s an important line between illogical-stubbornness and determination-stubbornness. Would you agree? I have both versions.

ZAN: As someone who also has both versions, I’d agree, though that line can get blurry. What is something you’d say you’re illogically stubborn about?

PA: I just asked Mom to tell me something I’m stubborn about and, kind woman that she is, she said, “Nothing comes to mind,” which was nice.

ZAN: Hmmm, tell her to let you know if anything does come to mind…

PA: Ha! I think we’ve worn away at each other’s stubbornness over all these years so we hardly fight at all any more.

ZAN: Is that so?

PA: Yes, it’s really true. Not like we fought so much anyway, but there were certain kinds of persistent disagreements that have been eroded over the centuries of our togetherness. I think in the early years of many intimate relationships there can be a power struggle: I want it this way; you want it that way. I think this is right; you think that is right. You can dig in your heels, take it personally, make up whole sagas to explain why the other person clings to these crazy notions. In time, you can joke about a lot of it, you can let the other person have their weird ideas, you can compromise. I think a couple reaches that stage, if they ever reach it, around year 40……

ZAN: Having observed your relationship over the last 27 years, I’d say I very much admire the way you’re able to joke about so much!

PA: When we were younger there were larger issues—certain opinions, certain ideas of what was good and bad behavior, most of which we’ve let go as we’ve matured. A lot of it was old rules from my upbringing and from Mom’s, which were basically the north and south poles of familial culture, as you may know. There’s not a huge amount of overlap between the WASP and Italian American ways of being.

These days my stubbornness mostly takes the form of quirky little things. When I walk on the road with Mom, I like to be on the outside, the traffic side. I like the same coffee cup every morning. I like certain kinds of forks and spoons. I’m stubborn about taking certain routes to go places, even though they aren’t the fastest ways (some of that has to do with our Christopher Columbus syndrome: I’d get lost if I went a new way). For a couple of years I stubbornly refused to get hearing aids, even though I obviously needed them. I don’t like my pasta overcooked. I don’t like cheap wine or weak coffee or mealy fruit or snacks loaded with chemicals, and I refuse to put such things into my body. Do those count as stubbornness?

Where are your stubborn places?

ZAN: You and I have at least one of these in common—I am very stubborn about taking certain routes despite the fact (or maybe because of the fact?) that they don’t make sense to anyone else. Like going a way to the grocery store that’s ever-so-slightly longer than the alternative but makes more sense to me because it’s straighter and involves fewer turns and stop lights…

PA: That is perfectly reasonable!! Your mother fails to see the logic there, but I’m 100% sure I’m right!

ZAN: I’m stubborn with self-reliance, to the point of refusing help at all costs. Like I mentioned in our last substack on driving, I have been living without a car for the last few months, and sometimes I’ve insisted on walking a couple of miles to and from my home to meet friends rather than accepting a ride. Or have found insane, inefficient work-arounds to problems rather than take someone up on an offer to help. Something about not wanting to be a burden on anyone…

Wasn’t that something I did as a kid, too?

PA: Is the Pope still Catholic? One of your famous early words was ‘self, self!’ often said with an edge of irritation. It was mostly a good kind of stubbornness—a desire for independence, an insistence on learning on your own—and even now it’s mostly good, but it was very apparent. I remember teaching you to swim and telling you to hold onto the bottom of my swim trunks and kick your feet while I walked thigh-deep in the water. No deal. You let go and just started swimming. At times you carried it too far, however, and refused help you might have accepted.

ZAN: Sounds like me.

If you asked my friends, they’d probably say I’m stubborn about wanting people to like me—I can’t stand the thought that I might cause someone any negative feelings or experience, so I’ll go out of my way to be nice to everyone, even those who might not deserve my kindness.

PA: Yeah, me too, but certain personal interactions have helped me get over that. Like you, I try hard not to inconvenience or burden people, but I don’t worry much about everyone liking me. I never have the sense from you that you worry about being liked, but I’ve always seen how considerate you are. As with everything else we discuss, it’s a matter of finding the middle way. What about your small stubbornnesses?

ZAN: I’m picky about things like which mug I use (I have certain mugs I swear coffee tastes better in, and certain mugs I’ll only drink tea out of), how my pasta is cooked, how much sleep I get each night… But I don’t necessarily think of these as manifestations of stubbornness.

ZAN continues: What would you say is at the root of stubbornness?

PA: Great question. As I say in the audio footnote, lack of humility might be one good answer. What do you think?