The Need for Personal Resilience and a Shared Response

Many people have asked me lately about personal resilience during this messy, strange, disturbing time that we’re living through. Maybe you feel this way, too: you are trying your hardest to keep your head above water, to do your best in your work and life, and yet you often feel unhappy, unfulfilled, unrelentingly under pressure. Even when things are going well, these feelings gnaw at you, possess you, won’t leave you alone. You may be asking yourself: is personal resilience enough to get through these times?

I am a big believer in the value of personal resilience and its vital role in our lives. Perhaps this is because I was so sick as a child, for such a long period, and came to rely on my own personal resilience to get through often horrific times. Maybe it is because I have spent my adult life pushing such a large rock up such a steep hill in seeking to build a set of ideas and practices to unleash the innate capacities of communities and enable people to fulfill their God-given potential. I am grateful to the people who supported and fortified me along the way and helped create my resilience.

But here’s the thing. The challenges we face in society today require more than just our personal resilience. Personal resilience alone will not get us where we need to go; nor will it make us feel that we are on the right path. The challenges before us demand a shared response. And let’s be clear: no one leader, organization, or group can address the fault lines that exist in our society. None of us during a time like this (or any time) can go it alone, on our own. It never works. We need each other. 

To build a more hopeful, inclusive society, personal agency is indeed critical, but shared agency is essential. 

The four crises we face today–the pandemic, economic fall-out, systemic racism and injustice, and lost political faith–can be overwhelming. Even in working together to address them, they will require time, collective resources, perseverance, and courage. They will call upon us to exercise the deepest of humility: that no single source has the answers we need, and so much of what we do may miss the mark, despite our best efforts and intentions. And yet, we must march on.

We must actively and routinely reach out to others for support, to work together, and to go forward together. In doing so, I cannot emphasize this next point enough: each of us must recognize that in times like these, small steps in the right direction are so important, as they get us in motion, and when we are in motion, we gain confidence, and new possibilities arise. We make room for progress, serendipity, and hope.

So, I ask you to consider these questions today: What am I to do? Who can I be now? What is my contribution? Who can I become? In seeking to answer these questions, my message is that personal resilience is important. But we need more. We need each other to make society anew. So, think about who you can reach out to. What small steps can you take with others? How can you be in motion, together? How can you build your individual and collective confidence? What does it take to be open to the new possibilities you discover along the way? 

It’s one step at a time right now.