Option B

by Sheryl Sandberg

“No one ever told me,” C. S. Lewis wrote, “that grief felt so like fear.”

She said that since she was ahead of me on this sad widow’s path, she wished she had some good advice to offer, but she didn’t. She had lost her husband a few years earlier, her close friend had lost hers a decade before, and neither of them felt that time had lessened the pain.

thought resilience was the capacity to endure pain, so I asked Adam how I could figure out how much I had. He explained that our amount of resilience isn’t fixed, so I should be asking instead how I could become resilient.

“I can’t imagine either, but I have no choice.”

“This is the second worst moment of our lives. We lived through the first and we will live through this. It can only get better from here.”

“Option A is not available. So let’s just kick the shit out of Option B.”

You must go on, I can’t go on, I’ll go on. —SAMUEL BECKETT

We plant the seeds of resilience in the ways we process negative events. After spending decades studying how people deal with setbacks, psychologist Martin Seligman found that three P’s can stunt recovery: (1) personalization—the belief that we are at fault; (2) pervasiveness—the belief that an event will affect all areas of our life; and (3) permanence—the belief that the aftershocks of the event will last forever. The

not everything that happens to us happens because of us.

What is everyone talking about and why on earth does this even matter?

Studies of “affective forecasting”—our predictions of how we’ll feel in the future—reveal that we tend to overestimate how long negative events will affect us.

cognitive behavioral therapy technique where you write down a belief that’s causing you anguish and then follow it with proof that the belief is false.

“lean in to the suck”—

“Part of every misery,” C. S. Lewis wrote, is “misery’s shadow…the fact that you don’t merely suffer but have to keep on thinking about the fact that you suffer.”

“making friends with our own demons.”

“You’ll quit your job. You’ll fall in love. You’ll catch your new love cheating on you and murder them both in an act of incredible passion. And it doesn’t matter, because none of it will be discussed with The Non-Question-Asking Friend, who never, ever, ever asks you anything about your life.”

Yes! The weather has been weird with all this rain and death.

“Our child dies a second time when no one speaks their name.”

Unlike non-question-asking friends, openers ask a lot of questions and listen to the answers without judging. They enjoy learning about and feeling connected to others. Openers can make a big difference in times of crisis, especially for those who are normally reticent.

I had become a member of a club that no one wants to belong to—a club that I did not even know existed before I joined involuntarily.

know you don’t know yet what will happen—and neither do I. But you won’t go through this alone. I will be there with you every step of the way.”

the noise became too unpleasant, they could press a button and make it stop. Sure enough, the button allowed them to stay calmer, make fewer mistakes, and show less irritation. That’s not surprising. But here’s what is: none of the participants actually pressed the button. Stopping the noise didn’t make the difference…knowing they could stop the noise did. The button gave them a sense of control and allowed them to endure the stress.

When people are in pain, they need a button.