One of the most important things to remind ourselves is that resilience is the norm, not the exception. When I moved to the United States some 20 years ago, I was shocked initially at the numbers of young people here who were pathologizing everyday things as some kind of monumental difficulty (and also at the corresponding amounts of anti anxiety medications my peers were on).
I remember attributing it to ignorance - to the fact that they’d never seen *real* difficulty in life - as those of us who grew up in the post communist 90s in Eastern Europe did. So trivial things to me were major problems to them. It was all perspective.
People have a remarkable ability to bounce back from difficulty. But I also think you need difficulty in your life in order to truly discover and appreciate that ability you possess.
Resilience, like intelligence, can come in many forms across life domains. Physical, social, mental, emotional, spiritual, financial, etc. the question I constantly ask myself and try to practice is how can we take resilience in one domain like business or sport and translate it to another like parenting or relationships. I believe in my soul the concepts can translate well and the practice becomes intention behind the training in a different domain. Making resilience a skill that can be progressively built upon like anything else.
Beautiful article putting evidence to practical life wisdom as always.
I agree! I also think you're correct that the translation takes work. It doesn't just magically appear—a person has to make the connections, decide on beliefs, etc.
This might be a controversial take, but I believe it’s true: you get what you focus on.
And we focus way too much on the negative.
When you look back at the Greatest Generation, the sacrifices of the Depression era, or even further into history, there wasn’t space for constant rumination. Life demanded that you deal with what happened and keep moving.
That’s one extreme, to be fair.
But I think we’ve overcorrected. Today, we often encourage people to fixate on what went wrong — their trauma, their injury, their insult. And that kind of relentless focus on the negative tends to multiply it. Perseveration doesn’t heal; it deepens the wound.
I think you're absolutely onto something. I'm still sorting out all these topics in my head, but your point about focus reminds me of a concept called "event centrality." It's basically the degree to which a person perceives a life event as central to their identity and life story. From a study:
"Berntsen and Rubin's (2007) centrality of events model for PTSD sheds additional light on the topic of appraisal. The more a person views a traumatic memory as central to their life narrative, the more likely they are to develop PTSD. The centrality of events model suggests that integrating a traumatic event into one’s life story may be a poor decision, especially if it causes the individual to center their life story around the trauma. Therapeutically, this theory suggests that PTSD should be treated by gently reducing the importance of the trauma to the individual’s life story, allowing the individual to see outside the “lens” of trauma."
I’m impressed by Holocaust survivors who survived horrors hard to imagine, yet find the strength to live, build families and careers as well as speak with passion and eloquence about life’s lessons and philosophies.
One of the most important things to remind ourselves is that resilience is the norm, not the exception. When I moved to the United States some 20 years ago, I was shocked initially at the numbers of young people here who were pathologizing everyday things as some kind of monumental difficulty (and also at the corresponding amounts of anti anxiety medications my peers were on).
I remember attributing it to ignorance - to the fact that they’d never seen *real* difficulty in life - as those of us who grew up in the post communist 90s in Eastern Europe did. So trivial things to me were major problems to them. It was all perspective.
People have a remarkable ability to bounce back from difficulty. But I also think you need difficulty in your life in order to truly discover and appreciate that ability you possess.
Thank you for sharing that perspective. Great comment.
I agree that having difficulty in your life alters what you consider "a difficulty."
This!! You so eloquently captured what I have been trying to say for along time but usually ended up labeled uncaring and mean. Thank you!!
Resilience, like intelligence, can come in many forms across life domains. Physical, social, mental, emotional, spiritual, financial, etc. the question I constantly ask myself and try to practice is how can we take resilience in one domain like business or sport and translate it to another like parenting or relationships. I believe in my soul the concepts can translate well and the practice becomes intention behind the training in a different domain. Making resilience a skill that can be progressively built upon like anything else.
Beautiful article putting evidence to practical life wisdom as always.
I agree! I also think you're correct that the translation takes work. It doesn't just magically appear—a person has to make the connections, decide on beliefs, etc.
Always interesting to see high achievers be absolutely messes in other parts of their lives. All the tools/potential are there, just not translating.
This might be a controversial take, but I believe it’s true: you get what you focus on.
And we focus way too much on the negative.
When you look back at the Greatest Generation, the sacrifices of the Depression era, or even further into history, there wasn’t space for constant rumination. Life demanded that you deal with what happened and keep moving.
That’s one extreme, to be fair.
But I think we’ve overcorrected. Today, we often encourage people to fixate on what went wrong — their trauma, their injury, their insult. And that kind of relentless focus on the negative tends to multiply it. Perseveration doesn’t heal; it deepens the wound.
I think you're absolutely onto something. I'm still sorting out all these topics in my head, but your point about focus reminds me of a concept called "event centrality." It's basically the degree to which a person perceives a life event as central to their identity and life story. From a study:
"Berntsen and Rubin's (2007) centrality of events model for PTSD sheds additional light on the topic of appraisal. The more a person views a traumatic memory as central to their life narrative, the more likely they are to develop PTSD. The centrality of events model suggests that integrating a traumatic event into one’s life story may be a poor decision, especially if it causes the individual to center their life story around the trauma. Therapeutically, this theory suggests that PTSD should be treated by gently reducing the importance of the trauma to the individual’s life story, allowing the individual to see outside the “lens” of trauma."
I’m impressed by Holocaust survivors who survived horrors hard to imagine, yet find the strength to live, build families and careers as well as speak with passion and eloquence about life’s lessons and philosophies.