By Manny Roman, CRES
I heard someone say, “What does not kill you makes you stronger” and wondered exactly what that means and who first said it. Internet here I come to research it to death. Wait, what if it does kill me? I will not then be able to bore you with this column. Let’s see if it does in fact make me stronger.
First, this saying is apparently a modification of a quote from Friedrich Nietzsche, the late 19th century German philosopher. From my “research,” the actual quote is, “Out of life’s school of war: What does not destroy me, makes me stronger.” Although the difference may be slight, in my mind “kill” and “destroy” imply divergent paths. The intent may be that life’s slings and arrows, things that happen to us that may not be our fault, may actually improve our resilience. Even if they are our fault, resilience can be enhanced by each event.
So, what is resilience? According to apa.org, “Resilience is the process and outcome of successfully adapting to difficult or challenging life experiences, especially through mental, emotional, and behavioral flexibility and adjustment to external and internal demands.” Resilience reminds me of a quote from Stephen R. Covey, the author of “7 Habits of Highly Effective People.” He wrote, “It’s not what happens to us, but our response to what happens to us that hurts us.” So, we have response ability, we can choose how we respond to people and things.
Every day we successfully react, respond, accept, and reject, etc., incoming issues and challenges, maybe without conscious thought. The actions we take and internalize change us and prepare us for similar future events. We are improving our resilience.
So … resilience can and is learned, just like good communication and any other life skill. It is a product of experiences and practice. Can we take steps to improve resilience other than by experience?
According to research, resilience is influenced by mental, emotional, behavioral flexibility, and how we view and engage with the world. Unless I have this all wrong, all this stuff so far is talking about our attitude, and attitude is mostly a choice. We can wake up and go forth looking for problems and to be offended; or we can go forth looking for ways to be happy and to be effective in dealing with the challenges and people we encounter. Having a well-defined value system goes a long way in dealing with these types of challenges.
But … what about those events that come close to destroying us? The tough ones are the physical events such as a deforming accident or emotional events such as the death of a loved one (which itself can be physically debilitating). These compel us toward the realization and eventually acceptance that we can never go back to normal. We can only move forward to a changed normal. The pain caused by the event may never fully dissolve, however through resilience we can evolve within the pain.
Another quote from Friedrich Nietzsche: “To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering.” Survival is the strength part of the quote from above. We can accept to be destroyed, or find meaning and strength in accepting what cannot be changed. You should only fight what can be changed and has meaning to you.
Wow, that’s all depressing stuff! However, I am stronger for the experience of the research and the attempt to make sense in the writing. You will be stronger by the experience of surviving to the end. •
Manny Roman, CRES, is association business operations manager at Association of Medical Service Providers.
