Photo credit: Image by Wolfgang Eckert from Pixabay
What is Resilience, Really?
Resilience is defined in the dictionary in a few different ways.
Resilience is defined in the Oxford Dictionary as “the ability to withstand or quickly overcome difficulties; toughness”.
I like how this definition separates resilience into two skill components: the ability to endure or withstand and the ability to overcome challenges. I also like how it added the word ‘toughness’ because I have found it takes courage and steely resolve to persevere through a crisis.
I think it’s important to note that resilience is a skill you can cultivate, and not a trait you are either born with or without.
In slight contrast, the Santander defines resilience from the psychology perspective, emotional resilience is the ability to deal with adversity in a constructive way, adapting and becoming stronger in the face of traumatic events. Therefore, a resilient person is one who learns from the adverse situations they experience, and is able to see the positive side of thing.
About the Stories of Resilience and Reourcefulness that I Share on this Blog
I share stories of resilience and resourcefulness with these definitions of resilience in mind, including tales that show people withstanding hardship, finding clever and creative ways to perservere and overcome adversity and obstacles.
I do this because it fascinates me, and because I believe we are living during a time of great transition, and that cultivating resilience will the be the most important skill to cultivate, now, as prices skyrocket due to inflation and in the years to come, as the old world power structures crumble and new ones need to be made.
There is a lot we can learn from what has happened in different places around the world in the past, and these lessons can help us cope with what is going on right now.
My stories have been curated from all over the world, usually from situations I have witnessed first hand as I traveled through more than 50 countries on 4 continents over 20+ years.
I wasn’t always a traveler. I grew up in Canada, in Alberta, where the Rocky Mountains meet the parkland and prairies, and got itchy feet at a young age,although I didn’t gain the courage to act on my travel urges until I was in my early 30s.
Then I couldn’t stop.
I keep coming back to long stints of travel lasting years in end between periods of living back in Canada.
During my many wandering travels I have wound up in some very ‘off the beaten path’ places. I have experienced first hand what it is like, and the daily and weekly and monthly routines of living in mostly Buddhist, Arabic, Catholic, Christian, athiest, and many different indigenous places. I have experienced living under democratic, monarchy, and communist systems, in a few different Asian and ‘Western’ countries. I have seen alternative economies, alternative health care and alternative, nature based, eco-friendly lifestyles in action in many countries.
I have seen adversity in both ‘rich’ and ‘poor’ places, and clever ways to cope with hardship and difficulties, either caused by natural or man-made circumstances in every country, and especially in the countries we dismissively call ‘developing’ countries.
I was in Thailand right after the currency devalued and inflation triggered an economic collapse in the early 2000s.
I was in Argentina during a time when inflation started to rise, doubling the prices of everyday things in an uptick in the typical 7 year cycle of inflation that wracks that country has experienced.
I was in China at the beginning of the Covid pandemic, and I even lived in Wuhan the year before the pandemic happened and working in the south of China as an English teacher when the pandemic hit in 2019 and 2020.
I have seen dirt poor indigenous tribes barely eeking out an existence high in the Andes alps and the coasts of Ecuador and favelas in Chile and Mexico.
And I have been impressed many times by the creative solutions I have seen people come up with all over the world that have shown their resilience and fortitude to survive.
And thrive.
I learned so much from these experiences.
These are the ideas and lessons learned that I want to share with you in this blog, in the hopes that you too will appreciate hearing surprising ways to solve problems, and that these ideas spark your own ideas about how to overcome challenges you are acing in your own life.
I call these ideas ‘bright ideas’ and stories of resilience and resourcefulness on this blog.
Based on them I have added informative articles intended to educate you further on a topic to deepen your awareness of issues and options related to the topic. Occasionally I also offer my recommendations for the best things to use or buy to replicate a solution. Sometimes there will be affiliate links added, as a way of earning revenue to help support me and this site.
I appreciate your support and look forward to connecting with you and hearing your ideas, reactions and your own stories of resilience and resourcefulness on my Telegram channel
Peace,
Marianne