Resilience: A Priority
A universal truth acknowledged by all the people who have lived beyond childhood, is that life is a lot more than a straight line that goes from one point to another. It couldn’t be more tangled, and interwoven with a million experiences and lives of other people. Any road we set out to explore will come with its own set of difficulties and uncertainties. It’s the same for everybody. No one has things easy. A thousand people set out to seek one destination. But only ten people arrive there. Is it because they had a ready-made map with detailed steps for a smooth journey? Clearly not.
The difference is simple.
Resilience.
Resilience is the ability to recover from difficulty. In simpler terms, the ability to bounce back. If you’re thinking that this is a special talent possessed by very few people, hold on a second. Resilience is a human trait that each one of us possesses. Humans have the great ability to adapt to their situation, with time. People who have lived through the deepest trauma, still continue to live their lives. However, resilience needs to be practiced and developed further.
Carol Dweck identified and explained the two mindsets — Fixed mindset and Growth mindset. When people see things with the view that their certain abilities are limited and complete, and cannot be increased, the fixed mindset is in place. The growth mindset develops from the idea that your abilities are developed by you through consistent effort. People who think this way have a greater chance of succeeding at things as they persist in trying to achieve their goals. Developing resilience is important to creating and maintaining a growth mindset.
“Resilience is accepting your new reality, even if it’s less good than the one you had before. You can fight it, you can do nothing but scream about what you’ve lost, or you can accept that and try to put together something that’s good.”
― Elizabeth Edwards
Be it in a competitive corporate or a peaceful village, resilience can get you far. The ability to adapt is very important and highly valued. The one thing predictable about life is its unpredictability. Living through a pandemic that we hadn’t anticipated two years back, this statement needs no greater proof. The key quality you can hold on to is the ability to adapt in the face of adversity. It doesn’t come easy, of course, but take a little time to process things, and focus on the silver lining. Slowly, reroute, plan and get going again.
Sometimes, adversity makes us crumble, and grief does not vanish in a day. It takes time for wounds to start healing. But understand that you need to get back up. It’s not how badly you fall and hurt yourself that matters. Your strength is defined by your will to stand back up.
So, the next time life pushes you down pits of doom, and throws rocks and stones in your way, would you give up and walk away, or take your time and slowly continue your journey?
