While You Were Sleeping

January 7, 2012

In one study, although researchers found that people who experienced lots of adversity were generally more distressed than others, those who had experienced no traumatic events in their lives had similar psychological problems.

The people with the best outcomes were those who had experienced some negative events in their lives.

—

The Telegraph, last month, reported on a series of studies that show resilience is a learned skill.

The concept of resilience (defined as one’s ability to recover from negative events) is something that has always preoccupied me. For a long time, I have been convinced that resilience is the one and only secret to experiencing happiness. Bad stuff will always happen. Part of growing up is realising that life (and other people) will never miss an opportunity to test us. Learning that we can overcome that, and finding ways to do it, is what keeps us afloat.

So think, for just one second, about the implications of the quote above. Think about how powerful it is: the idea that never making mistakes with your children, shielding them too much, is just as bad for them as brutally traumatising them. And in your adult life, avoiding conflict, running from problems, not taking risks, never failing, denying yourself the chance to be under duress, all that will continue to stunt you.

The story doesn’t say much about the exact mechanisms, but it’s easy to guess how this would happen: if your confidence and your sense of identity are built solely on positive experiences, how can you trust yourself to overcome hardship? How do you start seeing bad situations as challenges, as opposed to defeats? How do you not live in fear when you can’t envision the worst possible outcome?

Growing up, I resented my parents for all the mistakes they made. Even in my mid-twenties, their fallibility—their humanity—angered me. Today, I couldn’t be more thankful. Because that’s just it: the biggest mistake you could ever make is never making any.

— From SF.

12:04am | URL: http://tmblr.co/Z9DOYyENDhyP
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(Notes: 43)