Resilience Isn’t What You Think

Tenacity. Grit. Determination. Perseverance. Fortitude. Toughness. Invincibility. There is a rigidity innate to these words, a hardness that evokes images of armored soldiers and exhausted mountaineers. To me, the message of these words is: work harder, try harder, keep going, do more. There is a time and a place for these qualities, but they are different from resilience. If resilience isn’t these things, then what is it? How do we cultivate it? And how does that change our stories and expectations for ourselves and others?