Resilience

I've come to the conclusion recently that the number 1 thing I want my kids to come away from their childhood with is resilience. It is becoming more and more apparent to me as time goes on just how important this trait is in living a purposeful life. 

The truth is, life can be hard. More to the point, every life has periods of hardships. This is illustrated in the Buddhist story of Kisa Gautami. (The following is from www.buddhanet.net.)

Kisa Gautami was a young woman from a wealthy family who was happily married to an important merchant. When her only son was one-year-old, he fell ill and died suddenly. Kisa Gautami was struck with grief, she could not bare the death of her only child. Weeping and groaning, she took her dead baby in her arms and went from house to house begging all the people in the town for news of a way to bring her son back to life.

​Of course, nobody could help her but Kisa Gautami would not give up. Finally she came across a Buddhist who advised her to go and see the Buddha himself.

When she carried the dead child to the Buddha and told Him her sad story, He listened with patience and compassion, and then said to her, "Kisa Gautami, there is only one way to solve your problem. Go and find me four or five mustard seeds from any family in which there has never been a death."
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Kisa Gautami was filled with hope, and set off straight away to find such a household. But very soon she discovered that every family she visited had experienced the death of one person or another. At last, she understood what the Buddha had wanted her to find out for herself — that suffering is a part of life, and death comes to us all. Once Kisa Guatami accepted the fact that death is inevitable, she could stop her grieving. She took the child's body away and later returned to the Buddha to become one of His followers.

We are all given challenges and difficult times in our lives which need to be overcome. The example with the Buddha above focuses on the challenge of grief, but we also experience challenges with our health, work, families, social groups, school, etc. But the stories that matter - the really good, inspiring stories - don't start and end with the challenge, with the suffering. The real stories aren't about how we are compelled to act, encounter an obstacle, and throw up our hands in defeat. They aren't about how we came up against a problem and walked away.  They also aren't about how we tried to do something important and it was really easy and accomplished in short order. The real stories are about how we had an obstacle that felt like it was going to bring us down, and we found it within ourselves to push through it. Real inspiration comes from feeling hopeless and summoning the strength we didn't know we had to keep going. Think of any Hollywood movie. There is something which needs to be overcome, and almost always it is the perseverance and resilience of the character which allows the movie to arc. Without that challenge, there is no story.

I have a friend who is a marathon runner. I was always in awe of her marathon times. I have never been compelled to run a marathon, but her times were well below my half marathon times doubled, meaning I knew she was way faster than me. She had two babies in the last few years, and when she ran her first marathon post-children she had a very difficult time with it, finishing almost an hour and a half over her personal record. But in her most recent marathon, she brought her time down by 50 minutes from her previous time. I love her story so much for many reasons. A marathon is a long race. She had a full 26.2 miles to quit when she was having such a hard time in that first post-babies race. Running is every bit as mental as it is physical, and to keep pushing on when you know you're having a disappointing race is a huge accomplishment. THAT is a finish to celebrate - the fact that you kept putting one foot in front of the other and crossed that finish line. For hours she must have known she was off her time, and she persevered. She also didn't give up on marathons (here is the resilience!). That disappointing race was followed by another race, in which she made a huge improvement. Without that really difficult previous race, where would that renewed sense of accomplishment come from as she betters her time by FIFTY minutes? How can we truly appreciate the good times if we don't have any backdrop of bad times? 

Being resilient isn't just to keep moving - it requires an adjustment within us. Sometimes we need to learn from a mistake, and then move forward. Sometimes we need to train harder, and then move forward. Sometimes we need to reevaluate and retool a plan, and then move forward. Sometimes we need to change our perspective, and then move forward.

So remember when you are in the midst of a low point: that's not the story. The real story is how you find your strength to persevere. 

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