Resilience
Resilience has been defined in the Oxford dictionary as “the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness.” Resilience is admired. It is more important we are able to acquire it. I did. We can. We will.
In a 2021 article, Harvard Business Review talks about building resilience: The Secret to Building Resilience. https://hbr.org/2021/01/the-secret-to-building-resilience This is a worthwhile read.
What is important to note is it is NOT just a question of being tough enough to succeed from setbacks; resilience is often described as “the difference between successful and unsuccessful people. What is more pertinent is we want to acquire the will to succeed, despite the barriers along the way.
Learning from the school of life
From my lived experience, three characteristics are important in building resilience. What is equally important is to know that we can acquire them. They are: Insight, Will, and Adaptability.
1-Insight
Work on what we can change. Flow along what we cannot. Learn the wisdom to differentiate between the two. Let me share my lived experience. I am the eldest of 10 kids. This is the familiar family size of the baby boomers era. I was born in 1946.
And we were all poor. One of the ways my father found was to have three bank accounts and he moved the money around from one bank to another as he looked for money to keep himself, wife and 10 kids body and soul together.
One day I decided it’s enough. I must get out of this poverty well and bring all my siblings out of this poverty well too, not just me alone. I must. That was my decision in 1963. Give myself and my siblings an opportunity to go to the U. That was it. That was my game plan.
I worked on what I was good in — my studies. And I chose to be a doctor. I got a Government bursary of $800 SGD a year and I got into our medical school, then called University of Singapore. And I made it.
Along the school of life, I met a friendly bank manager in UOB Thomson. His branch was just down the slope from the then Thomson Road Hospital where I worked in late 1971. He was kind enough to lend me a hand. He gave me an overdraft facility. That was glorious.
As the years rolled along, as more and more of my siblings graduated and got into the work force, the red, red bank account became less and less fearsome. Today it is blue.
And Lewis, my youngest brother, 19 years my junior, graduated too. See my family photograph 1989 below. My siblings had succeeded in our resilience journey of 18 years. In between, there were many other family photographs. Sadly, Papa did not live to see Lewis’ graduation celebrations. I am sure he would be delighted.
2-Will
The will to succeed is important. Some call it “grit”. Others call it “perseverance”. Basically resilience is to find the meaning to hang on. My brothers, my sisters, and I did not give up. We held our family annual general meetings. We remain unified. As the lead of the pack, I have the trust of everyone. And my wonderful wife is always supportive too.
3-Adaptability
Resilience is also adaptability. The saying that the “darkest hour is the hour before dawn” is real. However dark the sky may look, dawn will come. So hold on. Do what we can do; flow along with what we cannot. Look for social support, look for people around us who will give us the support needed to cross the chasm. Don’t be afraid to ask. And in the context of adaptability we have the story of a nation to look at. https://resilientcitiesnetwork.org/downloadable_resources/Network/Singapore-Resilience-Strategy-English.pdf
Take home messages
Resilience is actually in each of us. It is a question of the mind accepting the challenge to change what we can change and flow along what we cannot. And dawn will come. It will.
Acknowledgment
Thanks are due to Lewis for the family photograph of 1989.
Dr LG Goh
Dr GOH Lee Gan is a retired Associate Professor in the Department of Family Medicine, National University Health System. He has an interest in learning and teaching how we can age well everyday (AWE).
