Resiliency

I recently read a Costco Connection article and the headline on the front page didn’t sit right with me. It said “Cultivating Resilience, A look at what it takes to grow through adverse experiences”. They had a picture of a flower growing through a crack in cement right next to it, which really does scream resilience, doesn’t it?

The part that I had an issue with was “grow through” adverse experiences. First off, resilience is defined as successfully adapting to challenging life experiences, focusing on the mental, emotional and behavioural aspects of the experience.

The article claims that scientists are saying that is the old definition, but that now they are really trying to focus on how you can learn resilient behaviour. In today’s modern world, where a lot of us either work at jobs we hate, or we work from home, we all feel very isolated. That’s not just an outcome of covid — it’s an outcome of our hyperconnectivity. We are all connected with social media accounts, and we no longer feel the need to connect personally, even over the telephone.

According to this article, these scientists are developing methods to teach people resilience in the workplace so there are less people calling in sick or going on short term disability. In effect, it’s all about saving the big corporations money, and the end game is MAKE MORE MONEY!

I think we should be focusing on the healing of adverse events — not growing, but taking the time to feel the emotion and deal with the mental load that comes from a devastating life event…