Resilience:
That ineffable quality that allows some people to be knocked down by life and come back at least as strong as before. Rather than letting difficulties or failure overcome them and drain their resolve, they find a way to rise.
Resilience Road Sign
They say that adversity is a fact of life. A rabbi once wrote a book about “bad things happening to good people.” It would go on to become one of those best-sellers that people turn to when the floors of their lives disappear beneath them.
According to a well-known psychology publication, resilience is that quality that some people possess. They have some kind of inner resolve and strength that helps them climb out from the wreckage of caused by events that turn their lives upside-down.
Then, there are those who are forced to come to terms with one of life’s truisms: causes have effects. I won’t go into all the elements of why the current pandemic was long overdue other than to say that we’re collectively experiencing the effects caused by living as one of the most narcissistic, self-centered cultures that’s ever inhabited the planet.
And as the effects of causes put in motion decades prior unfold, social media has become a movie full of people in public meltdown mode. “Wah, wah, wah” go these entitled souls. My mind often wanders to, “if this nightmare ever ends, I never want to have anything to do with these people ever again.”
Some people who experience tragedy devoid of meaning find a purpose again for life and living. I know two people who have walked that path over the past three years after losing their only son. They know a thing or two about being resilient and pushing through tough times.
What else is there to say? Tragedy is nothing new. Life if filled with pain. You are not uniquely special or immune from bad things.
I’m taking another history class at USM. This one on the Civil War and Reconstruction, has been forced by coronavirus from meeting weekly to being relegated to online status. Again, I find myself immersed in a 19th century world of death and carnage and a time when there were no social media platforms filled with entitled people whining about their lot in life. In many ways this period from our past seems like perhaps it was a better time: at the very least, it was very different from the days we’re living through.