Resilience – Your Most Valuable Asset

Javier Colomer 6 min. of reading Well-being habits Leave a comment

What is Resilience? It is our ability to adapt to adverse situations.

Today, we are going to talk about adaptation and resilience. This is possibly the most valuable asset that you are going to develop throughout your life.

In the next post, we will mention different ways to become more resilient. But first, we need to understand what resilience is all about.

Index

1 A very developed but unhappy society
2 Feeling empty
3 Resilience, the most important ability you can develop
4 Life will make things hard…
5 Facing reality
6 From fragility to resilience
7 From resilience to antifragility
8 What does Antifragile mean?
9 Related Entries

A very developed but unhappy society

Human beings (and most living beings) have a tendency to avoid suffering as much as we possibly can.

Wherever pain is, you will see someone walking in the opposite direction…

Pain and suffering mean destruction and your genes are heavily programmed to achieve just the opposite.

Our society has made a huge advancement in evolutionary terms (socially, culturally and technologically). In fact, we are communicating in ways we could have never imagined, we can travel anywhere in the world in a short time. In addition, we are producing sustainable energy and increasing our lifespan thanks to the medical advancements…

Feeling empty

However, most of us feel that there is something missing and we are invaded by a feeling of sadness. Moreover, we are still tormented by a feeling of “necessity” or “incompleteness”.

We have been sold that this idea of progress would make us happier. But that is not the case.

The result? Disappointment, anxiety and pills.

Depression is rapidly increasing, psychoactive drugs sales are increasing every second too and anxiety is a pandemic.

Does resilience have to do something with any of this? What are we missing?

Resilience, the most important ability you can develop

It does not matter if you are rich or poor, pretty or ugly, strong or weak…

Whoever you are, life is not going to make things easy for you…

Some people experience hardship at an early age and they are marked for the rest of their lives. Others happen in adulthood and they hurt in a different way. Sometimes we see them coming, sometimes they are unexpected…

But there is a common factor: it will be hard. Therefore, it will be better to be ready for what is to come.

Sometimes they will make you stronger and you will develop that ability: resilience. On the contrary, other experiences will deteriorate your personality and who you are.

Life will make things hard…

You may lose your job and not be able to sustain your family.
Or you may lose a loved one.
Your parents may fall sick and you will not be able to do anything. One day you will have a car accident and you will not be able to walk again.
Perhaps you will be involved in a controversial matter and you will lose all your reputation.
Maybe the dream you have worked so hard for will disappear one day.

In these cases, there is nothing left but Being Resilient…

Hardship will come in different shapes and forms. However, hiding your head in the dirt like an ostrich is not going to save you.

Facing reality

Even if we do not want to see it, horrible things happen to people every day.

Every single day…

Nature is not fair and we should not pretend that it actually is. Justice is a foreign concept. Bad people will live their lives while good people are waiting in a hospital room.

The question is, what will you do when it happens?

Are you ready for the bad things to come? Do you believe that it will not happen to you? Or do you think that it is necessary to do something now? Have you ever asked yourself any of these questions?

From fragility to resilience

After going through a situation like the one I just mentioned, there are different ways to respond. In fact, each person will have a completely different reaction.

Some people accept the new circumstance, they bend to their new reality and keep living their lives as best as they can.

However, they will be weakened by what has happened. Sometimes, they will be so weak that they will have a hard time living their lives, carrying a heavy weight.

Others will fall into depression.

The disaster is so serious that they cannot stand it and all their psychological defenses crumble.

Depression, anxiety disorder or post-traumatic stress syndrome are some of the psychological problems that we can experience after an adverse circumstance.

From resilience to antifragility

But there is a third group of people that is worth mentioning. In fact, it is made up of people that use an adverse situation to become stronger.

For example, the author Nassim-Taleb perfectly describes this concept by using the same adjectives:

A fragile object will be threatened by a physical event that can compromise its integrity.

For instance, a ceramic glass will break if it falls to the ground.

On the contrary, a resilient object will resist hits without being deeply affected.

We could be talking about a tree trunk or a wall.

What does Antifragile mean?

Antifragile is a very interesting concept that Taleb develops in his thesis.

For Taleb, someone becomes antifragile like the hydra from Greek mythology. Thus, that type of person will become stronger when facing a stressor.

As you may already know, if you cut off its head, it will grow two more.

In the next post, we will talk about different ways to become the Hydra, using adversity for your own benefit.

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