There is a quiet stubbornness in how people born and raised in the 1960s and 1970s learned to get through life. It was not dressed up as motivational slogans or relentless optimism. It was a habit of returning to the same things day after day. That rhythm shaped careers marriages and grief in ways the modern positivity industry rarely acknowledges. This piece argues that for a whole generation the coping strategy that mattered most was consistency not positivity.
The unromantic mechanics of endurance
Think of endurance not as moral triumph but as a household appliance that someone had to keep running. People of that era kept going because stopping was costly. Jobs were structured around predictable schedules marriages were less likely to be dissolved quickly and communities still had places where you turned up and were accountable. That created a pressure that taught repetition and repetition taught competence. There is no tidy emotional language for that process. It is plain stubbornness and habit.
Where positivity fails
Modern positivity often promises immediate uplift. That works for a headline or a social media caption but not where daily life requires slow accretion. Positivity is talkative it needs constant refreshing and it performs poorly when the next mortgage bill or the next school run arrives. People who survived decades of brittle institutions learned to treat feelings as weather. They planned for rain rather than trying to banish clouds. That planning looked like schedules rituals and small reliable acts more than it looked like cheerful mantras.
“Effort counts twice.” Angela Duckworth. Professor of Psychology University of Pennsylvania.
That is not a feelgood aphorism. It is an empirical observation about how talent alone fails without repeated return. It maps cleanly onto the lived experience of many from the 60s and 70s. You do the same small useful thing until it becomes the only thing that keeps the house running.
Quiet structure beats dramatic breakthroughs
There is a cultural bias toward stories of sudden change. Yet most lives are shaped by margin moves rather than epiphanies. The 60s and 70s generation practiced margin moves instinctively. They showed up at work even when low on enthusiasm maintained rituals even when bored and stayed in relationships when compromise beat drama. That approach can look passive from the outside. From within it is a disciplined refusal to be governed by the fluctuating temperature of emotion.
The costs and the hidden strengths
Consistency is not without trade offs. It can ossify bad habits it can prolong unhappy circumstances and it can make people slow to adapt. But it also builds a predictability that protects against sudden collapse. When your routine contains redundancy you have fewer single points of failure. The 60s and 70s way of coping meant that people had social fallback systems built on repetition. That sometimes meant fewer acquaintances but firmer foundations.
I do not romanticise this as superior to modern methods. I have seen younger people teach older people new forms of emotional literacy and I have watched older people teach younger people how to finish plumbing projects. The point is not a contest. It is that we have different tools and we should stop pretending that positivity can substitute for systems of dependable behaviour.
How consistency shaped meaning
Meaning was often incidental to a task. You made tea you fixed a fence you worked your shift. Meaning arose later when you looked back and noticed the pattern. There is a peculiar moral logic here. The act precedes the story. You cannot wait until you feel meaning and then begin. That sequence is an uncomfortable truth for those raised on the idea that feelings should guide action.
My mother a woman born in 1961 used to say that households do not run on feelings but on return. She meant you paid the bills when they were due whether you could be bothered or not. That bluntness is less flashy than motivational narratives but it produces a steady ledger of small triumphs. Small triumphs pile up and eventually you look back and see a life.
Not a prescription but a lens
Adopting an attitude of consistency is not a cure for structural problems. It will not remove inequality or fix institutions that are broken. But it is a pragmatic lens for individuals who want to survive and sometimes quietly thrive. It encourages the design of routines the building of modest redundancy and the cultivation of commitments that outlast mood swings.
There is also an ethical dimension. Consistency demands that we show up for other people even when it is inconvenient. That requirement can create social goods that positivity alone rarely secures. A community depends on residents who perform small obligations reliably. Many of the most resilient neighbourhoods in Britain were shaped by people who did the same small things for decades.
Where modern culture can learn
We should not throw out the genuine innovations of emotional intelligence and therapy. Those tools have improved countless lives. But mixing them with a pragmatic discipline of regular habits could be powerful. Imagine therapy that helps you figure out what regular actions would stabilise your life and then helps you commit to them. That is not a fashionable headline. It is dull work. And dull work accumulates into repair.
Consistency stands as a counterweight to the performative aspects of positivity culture. It asks for less performance and more repetition. The stakes are different and the rewards often quieter. You do not get a viral moment. You get the next month paid for the boiler replaced and a small group of people who know they can count on you.
Final thought
If there is any single lesson from the 60s and 70s approach it is this. Stability often requires a boring devotion. Boring is not a moral failing. It is a survival strategy. When positivity feels thin and performative recall that for some people the only way through was to lean into the same small acts over and over until life rearranged itself around them.
Summary Table
| Idea | What it looked like | Why it mattered |
|---|---|---|
| Consistency over positivity | Daily rituals steady attendance to duties routine financial habits | Created predictable support structures reduced collapse risk |
| Pragmatic endurance | Returning to tasks even without enthusiasm | Built skill and social reliability |
| Trade offs | Slow adaptation risk of maintaining poor situations | Produces stability but can entrench problems |
| What to borrow | Combine emotional tools with habit engineering | Better resilience with less theatrical optimism |
FAQ
How is consistency different from grit or resilience
Consistency is behavioural it is about the repetition of useful acts. Grit is an attitude that often includes consistency but adds a directional passion or purpose. Resilience is broader and includes the ability to recover from setbacks. You can be consistent without being passionate and you can be resilient without a rigid routine. The 60s and 70s approach emphasised doing the same thing reliably which in practice made people more resilient because their systems had fewer single points of failure.
Does this mean positivity is useless
Not at all. Positivity can change motivation and it can help reframe suffering in helpful ways. The problem arises when positivity is used as a substitute for structures. Feeling better is not the same as arranging your life so that you have fewer emergencies. Combine the two and you get the best results.
Can younger generations adopt this without losing progress
Yes. The real task is selective adoption. Younger people can keep the gains made in emotional literacy while borrowing the disciplines that produce reliable outcomes. That might look like simpler habits clearer commitments and fewer headline friendly but fleeting gestures of wellbeing.
What about people trapped in abusive or damaging routines
Consistency can be dangerous if the routine itself is harmful. The point is to recognise what you are repeating and decide whether it is protective or damaging. The 60s and 70s mentality helped many survive but it also kept some in the same place. Understanding the difference matters and is where counselling community support and thoughtful planning come in.
Where does meaning come into this
Meaning often accrues after sustained practice. People rarely start with perfect clarity. They do small dependable things and then look back and see a life. That retrospective meaning is not inferior. It is a different route to significance than the one promised by sudden revelation or continuous positivity.
