Does my current behavior strengthen or weaken my/our capacity to function?
Why is that?
Category: Resilience
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On Resilience
Resilience is a word that everyone loves, but that is – by definition – hard to do. Resilience develops only by doing tasks that are physically and mentally demanding. It is something that needs constant challenge and pushing it, otherwise we grow less resilient over time.
Because I like the table format due to how it can simplify complex reality, here is one view into resilience:
Aspect Weakens resilience (- -) Maintains resilience (+-0) Strengthens resilience (++) social interaction avoid challenging topics in a conversation
stay quietactively participate in challenging conversations
answer when askedbring up challenging topics in a conversation
take your turn when necessaryphysical exercise avoid challenging physical exercise follow a pre-set exercise program do ad-hoc training (supersets, drop sets)
early morning training
frequent cold exposuremental exercise swipe, scroll and binge watch for hours read a book read a book from challenging genre or author
watch documentary on a challenging topic -
On Challenging Yourself
In the modern world of the 2020’s, it is very easy to be immediately satisfied. Thanks to online streaming, gaming and stores, we can (un)happily avoid most human contact and tell ourselves that we have healthy friendships, they just all happen to be pseudonyms, and that we enjoy culture when we binge Netflix for the fifth hour today.
Here’s a practical challenge, a quest of sorts: take a moment to list what makes you curious. What world do you want to enter?
Then find a book about that. Read it till the end unless it is utterly boring and badly written. If you decide to quit, figure out the specific reason, and also decide the next step you’ll take.
Little by little, page by page your resilient identity and attitude will grow. It will spread to other areas of life.
How will you challenge yourself today?
What is the next step you take?