There are two kinds of people in the world: people who display resilience and people who do not. The thing is you can be one or the other at any given moment. The difference between someone who is resilient and someone who is not is that one displays resilience and the other does not. 🙂 Faced with a challenge, the resilient one pushes herself across the threshold into the unknown. It’s like jumping out of an airplane. Either you launch yourself out or you don’t.

Take addiction for example. It takes some level of resilience to withstand urges to use your drug of choice. What is it that allows one addict to sustain sobriety and another to relapse? Given the opportunity to use, one resists and the other does not. Is there some kind of magic that allows one to push through that threshold and choose sobriety over and over again, rather than falling back into addiction? Is there some “resilience gene” that allows one to push through and another to falter?

I think it is more helpful to think of it as a “resilience muscle.” Everyone has the raw material it takes to be resilient. It’s just that some people hone their resilience muscle and some people do not, but any of us can start any time. If you practice pushing yourself across that threshold, you teach yourself it is possible to do so. Now your resilience muscle is enlivened. Do some repetitions. That muscle gets stronger. Today you conquer a small task you were putting off. Next week, it’s a more difficult one. In a few years, you might be able to conquer your greatest fear.

I don’t believe any people are incapable of displaying amazing resilience. If they exist, I just can’t find them! Given the right circumstances and some encouragement, people push themselves into and overcome what they thought they could not. There are countless stories of people surviving horrific oppression and abuse. In fact, it seems those who are subjected to the most horrific things with no hope of escape suddenly find out what they are made of. Think of those who have been oppressed, trapped in concentration camps, forced to leave their homes and flee to other countries or those who have experienced war violence. Over and over, they find resilience. What choice do they have? You either survive or you don’t.

Those are situations in which the human spirit soars. It is instructive even for those of us who are not suffering atrocities. Can you conquer something you thought impossible or even just really hard? Yes, you can today. You can push yourself across that threshold and suddenly find yourself in a place you did not think possible. You have taught yourself it is possible. Now on to the next one.