Is resilience required?

Is resilience required?

The short answer is, it depends...

If you're happy with the way things are (and the way you are), then the answer is "No." Resilience is unnecessary if you're satisfied or settling.

If, however, you're a difference maker pushing the edges of possibility for yourself and those you seek to serve through work that intends to enhance the prospects and prosperity for all. The answer is undeniably, "Yes."

Work that matters is work that might not work. Failing, misfortune, and being ignored are just a few of the difficulties that you will meet daily. Endeavors that make a difference must be done with and for others. Refining, both the work and whom it is done with and for, is a never-ending challenge.

Resilience is a skill acquired and honed through doing the work. Doing human work. Committing to your craft and community, showing up daily like a professional, and doing all this with intention and integrity cultivates resilience.

Resilience is usually framed as returning to a state after being bent or stretched. We often associate resilience with recovery.

But resilience isn't merely a return to "normal" or the way things were. Resilience is about developing ourselves and growing into potential. Resilience is about flourishing regardless of the intensity or duration of the struggle or the ultimate outcome. 

Resilience isn't required for those who prefer to remain humble and hiding and watching from the stands. But for those in the arena, resilience is the reward for determined and deliberate effort toward aims worth pursuing. Although these efforts might not succeed, the effort itself is the reward.

Scott Perry - Difference Maker at Creative on Purpose.

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