Nobody handed me a box. There was no official ceremony, no moment where my father cleared his throat and said, “Son, this has been in the family for generations—use it wisely.” Instead, the stubbornness just showed up one day, fully formed, like a genetic echo I’d been carrying around without knowing. I’d like to say I noticed it during some grand, principled stand-off, but the truth is far less dignified. It surfaced in a hardware store, in the rawlplug aisle, while a cheerful assistant tried to save me from myself.
My father was a master of quiet intransigence. He once spent an entire bank holiday wrestling with a flat-pack wardrobe, refusing to even glance at the instructions because, in his words, “it’s just a box with a door.” He wasn’t loud about it. He never argued. He’d just state his position—a simple, immovable fact—and then let the silence do the heavy lifting. If you pushed back, he’d look at you with a kind of puzzled disappointment, as if you’d just tried to convince him the sky was green. And then he’d go and check the boiler. The boiler, I should add, was always fine. It was just his exit strategy.
I see him in me now, in a hundred small, ridiculous ways. I have a drawer in my shed dedicated to bits of string that are “too short to be useful, but too long to throw away.” I keep Allen keys for furniture I no longer own, just in case the universe suddenly demands a 4mm hex key for a bookshelf I gave to a charity shop in 2014. I know it’s irrational. I know it’s borderline hoarding. But the thought of binning them feels like a betrayal—not of the objects, but of the principle. Dad never threw away a screw, a bolt, or a washer. “You never know,” he’d say. And he was right. You never do. But you also never find out, because the drawer is such a disaster you can’t face opening it.
This stubbornness, I’ve realised, is a kind of geography. It maps itself onto your life. For Dad, it was the kitchen, where tea was made with a ritualistic precision that would shame a Japanese tea master. Pot warmed. One bag per person. Milk in first. To do otherwise was to produce what he called “a cup of cat’s pee,” a verdict delivered with such quiet finality that no one ever dared challenge it. I now find myself silently judging friends who fling a teabag into a mug of lukewarm water and call it a day. I don’t say anything—I’m not my father—but the granite block is there, settling in my chest.
It’s the conversational style that really seals the deal, though. The art of the unspoken standoff. Dad could win an argument by simply leaving the room. He’d drop his truth bomb, then wander off to “check on the car” or “see if the back gate’s shut.” The debate would just… expire. No resolution, no handshake, just the faint smell of his departure. I’ve caught myself doing the same thing. A disagreement will start to simmer, and I’ll feel an overwhelming urge to reorganise the spice rack or go and stare at the fuse box. It’s a tactical retreat that becomes a permanent withdrawal. It’s maddening for the other person, I know. But it’s also incredibly effective.
Of course, this inheritance has a shadow side. It’s not all charming anecdotes about tea and rawlplugs. The same stubbornness that makes you stick with a difficult recipe or a complex DIY project can also make you stick with a grudge. It can turn a minor disagreement into a cold war that lasts for months, simply because neither side will be the first to blink. I saw it in my father. A silly argument about a holiday destination that festered into a long, unnecessary silence. A refusal to admit he’d forgotten a birthday, so he invented an elaborate story about a postal strike instead. I see the blueprint for that behaviour in myself, and it scares me. The same wall that keeps out the noise can also keep out the people you love.
So I’m learning—slowly, grudgingly, because of course I am—to put the tool down. To recognise that the most powerful act of will isn’t always holding your ground. Sometimes it’s stepping off it. Sometimes it’s saying, “You know what? You’re right. The self-drilling rawlplugs are better.” I hate saying that. Every fibre of my being resists it. But I’m trying, because I don’t want my stubbornness to be a wall. I want it to be a foundation.
I’ve started rebranding it, in my head. I call it “tenacity” now. “Fortitude.” “A strong sense of self.” It sounds better at parties. But in my quieter moments, I know it for what it is: a direct line to my father. It’s the way I hold a screwdriver. The way I refuse to ask for directions. The way I’ll spend forty minutes trying to fix a broken appliance out of sheer, bloody-minded principle before finally, grudgingly, looking up a repair video online. It’s the way I’ll drive 30 miles in the wrong direction, just to see where the road goes.
Dad did that once. The road turned into a cul-de-sac. He just turned the car around and drove home in silence. He never mentioned it again. And I know, with absolute, bone-deep certainty, that I would have done exactly the same thing. Thanks, Dad. I think.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is stubbornness always a negative trait?
Not at all. When it’s pointed in the right direction, stubbornness is just perseverance by another name. It’s the grit that gets you through a marathon, helps you master a tricky skill, or lets you stand up for something you believe in. The trouble starts when the stubbornness detaches from the goal and becomes about winning or saving face. The trick is to be stubborn about the things that matter—your values, your integrity—and flexible about the methods.
How can you tell if you’re being stubborn or just principled?
A good test is to ask yourself: “If I changed my mind on this, what would I actually lose?” If the answer is something real—your safety, your self-respect—you’re being principled. If the answer is just your pride or the fear of looking silly, you’re probably being stubborn. Another red flag is if you’ve stopped listening and are just waiting for the other person to run out of steam—or, in my father’s case, waiting for the conversation to die of natural causes.
Can you unlearn inherited stubbornness?
You can’t unlearn it any more than you can unlearn your eye colour, but you can get to know it and manage it. The first step is spotting the pattern. For me, it’s that feeling of a granite block settling in my chest. When I feel it, I try to pause and ask myself what my father would do. Then, depending on the situation, I either do the opposite or I lean into it with full awareness. Sometimes, you just need to let the road lead to a cul-de-sac to see it for yourself.