Secrets of Resilience: Lessons from adults who overcame difficult childhoods
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Re: Secrets of Resilience: Lessons from adults who overcame difficult childhoods
#2Re: Secrets of Resilience: Lessons from adults who overcame difficult childhoods
#3This link works: http://facebook.com/l.php?u=https://www.wsj.com/articles/the...
Re: Secrets of Resilience: Lessons from adults who overcame difficult childhoods
#4Lessons from adults who overcame difficult adulthoods: the word is "resilience".
Re: Secrets of Resilience: Lessons from adults who overcame difficult childhoods
#5If you let your circumstances swamp you and you end up being a victim you don't have the fight to change it. If you have that internal spark to drive you out of the situation then that drive always stays with you and you keep on riding it. Many people don't and continue in the quagmire.
Drifting along as a peaceful and well brought up youth can often continue so you don't have that drive and determination deep rooted in you.
Re: Secrets of Resilience: Lessons from adults who overcame difficult childhoods
#6A topic so close to my heart I can barely engage with it.
I credit my resilience to a sense of absolute worthlessness.
If you have seen the film Gattaca and the bit at the end how the non-modified person can beat the modified person... it comes down to not being afraid of the consequences, of literally being willing to die trying because what do you have to lose? That you would accept that, to die trying, stems from the worthlessness that one feels totally, and the worthlessness that the world and everyone around you communicates when you are so low.
Resilience, taking risks, fighting harder than anyone else, needing to always drive forwards or else fall backwards... for me it has an underlying secret: the profound sense of worthlessness as a human. From never really accepting you are valid and valuable even when you have "made it" by some definition. This is why I've made some decisions the way I have, I have nothing at all to lose... not even the value of life itself.
Which loops back to another recent theme on Twitter and HN and elsewhere... those dark thoughts of suicide if once thought, they never ever really leave.
NB: I'm fine, just being honest, feeling OK, in a good place... but this is what a hard life creates and such lives aren't lived for the purpose of being a lesson to others, and I'm not sure anyone should learn this lesson.
Re: Secrets of Resilience: Lessons from adults who overcame difficult childhoods
#7My most upvoted comment on HN was when I made reference to fact that I had grown up in African village. I was totally unaware that this was a something worth sharing but it seemed to pique people's interest. As I didn't know any better at the time, I never felt that I lacked anything. I had two parents, grand parents and many cousins around. We spent the whole time playing, "exploring" and "hunting". Not once did it occur to me that we didn't have running water or flushig toilets and hence I was worse off. We had chores, looking after the livestock and helping out with the harvest. We had at most three pairs of clothing and hardly wore shoes.
We moved to town and my siblings were born in town. To this day me and my older brother, the village kids have always been more independent. During the time I was in school my parents didn't glance at my homework. Later on when my younger brother who is 11 years younger than I am was in school my mother had "learnt" that good mothers help their kids with homework. To this day my little brother cannot do anything on his own without help (accept poetic license for the sake of being brief).
I read somewhere though, I think one of those decade long Harvard studies that having chores when young was the biggest factor in how successful people became. I presume poor kids have to play a bigger role, hence have more chores in ensuring that household is fed and clothed.
Re: Secrets of Resilience: Lessons from adults who overcame difficult childhoods
#8An more interesting thing to me is why resilience is so overlooked nowadays. We "design" young people to shatter like a glass when bad things happen.
Re: Secrets of Resilience: Lessons from adults who overcame difficult childhoods
#9A topic so close to my heart I can barely engage with it. I credit my resilience to a sense of absolute worthlessness. If you have seen the film Gattaca and the bit at the end how the non-modified person can beat the modified person... it comes down to not being afraid of the consequences, of literally being willing to die trying because what do you have to lose? That you would accept that, to die trying, stems from…
I think it takes a strong mind to overcome that belief framework.
That's not to say it didn't have inherent worth for you while you went through whatever you did that made you feel that way, but finding flaw in your own arguments/belief systems is a pretty significant skill set to learn too.
Learn to be resilient against yourself. Learn to take risks against yourself. Learn to fight harder against yourself, than anyone will ever fight against you.
Maybe you can, maybe you do, but that loop that brings you back to suicidal feelings is neither strength nor weakness.
Re: Secrets of Resilience: Lessons from adults who overcame difficult childhoods
#10An more interesting thing to me is why resilience is so overlooked nowadays. We "design" young people to shatter like a glass when bad things happen.
What does glass look like when it shatters?