Resilience
Chanukkah and Christmas 2024 forward
I promise to return to “meatier” issues tomorrow but today, in honor of the two major holidays, I wish something for each of us: resilience. Life is so often overwhelming these days (not merely due to the holiday overload).
Resilience, defined by Dictionary.com, in three ways is vital every…single…day. The definition of resilience is
the power or ability of a material to return to its original form, position, etc., after being bent, compressed, or stretched; elasticity.
the ability of a person to adjust to or recover readily from illness, adversity, major life changes, etc.; buoyancy.
the ability of a system or organization to respond to or recover readily from a crisis, disruptive process, etc.
It’s hard to admit how often each of us may feel that elasticity or buoyancy eluding us. Anger, frustration, remorse, hopelessness too often ensues, leading to ways to comfort ourselves that may not actually provide the desired effect (Ok, perhaps you don’t but I suspect many do).
Resilience has always struck me as muscle-like. It’s not a zero sum quantity (more resilience, less tension; more stress, less ability to bounce back) but it’s a quality we cultivate to our benefit. Perhaps I, speaking singularly, do it in tandem with attempting (often unsuccessfully) to enhance my own patience but the two attributes seem rather intertwined at times.
If I had to choose between them for us all, it would be the resiliency because that empowers us to regroup, then move forward. Resilience offers the capacity to look seek alternate actions or thoughts to get to a desired endstate, even though we may feel stonewalled along the way.
I wish you that resilience in any and all forms. For me, at least, I cannot imagine facing much without it yet too many of us underappreciate its power.
Enough. Back to traditional actions and consequences in a world full of intrigue, question, and hope.
I wish you and yours a Merry Christmas and Chanukah Sameach. In any case, a warm day of shelter, love, and joy.
We had a startlingly reflective morning already along Spa Creek. The skim of ice gives way to a reflection of the parting clouds as we looked towards the Annapolis side, only to then see crystal clear reflections of the shore but I primarily captured the calm water. You see a hint of the skim, like so many things hiding these days.
Be well and be safe. FIN
“resilience”, dictionary.com, retrieved 25 December 2024 at https://www.dictionary.com/browse/resilience