Can persistence manifest as stubbornness?
Stubbornness is defined as "unreasonably holding on to an opinion or purpose". Perhaps sound reasoning doesn't form the basis of an idea or an action of stubborn people.
Persistent people on the other hand have the ability to pursue their goals inspite of numerous odds that they might face. They don't give up easily. The spirit of not giving up easily has to arise from strong ideas/opinions, which defies logic.
The patterns of thinking between a persistent and a stubborn person could be similar. Perhaps our mind (or our brain) is not compartmentalized well enough to differentiate stubbornness and persistence. Hence the act of being persistent on one occassion can manifest as stubbornness on other occassions.
Note: Persistence can manifest as stubbornness and not vice-versa.
How do we avoid being outlandishly persistent?
We barely know how our minds work. We don't understand our limits and potential of our own abilities. Persistence is probably an evolved trait, that helps us explore (or expand) our abilities. Most often persistence relies on the "intuition" of the subject, to accomplish despite the seemigly improbable obstacles.
"Intuition" is not a product of logical reasoning. It is something our mind perceives as truth. Its like skipping several steps of logic and arriving at the conclusion. We "feel" the conclusion is right without any logical basis. However working our way back to those "skipped steps" can tell us how credible our intuition is. This could possibly save us from being outlandishly persistent.
