My attitudes # 9. Resilience. Bouncing back

“After climbing a great hill, one only finds that there are many more hills to climb.” Nelson Mandela.

Thanks for pointing that out to me 🙂

I thought there was supposed to be a rainbow at the top of the mountain? Is that another mountain to climb, or have I been thrown back down into the valley?

To recover from set-backs, one requires an attitude of resilience.

Resilience is more than keeping going, resilience is more than climbing a mountain, resilience is more than not quitting, resilience is more than recovering from set-backs, resilience is bouncing back.

I thought of all the ‘mountains’ I had climbed in life and have felt many times that I was over climbing mountains. I was sick of being thrown back down into the valley. I wrote about this in a very early post “No More Mountains” when I was faced with what seemed insurmountable obstacles and turmoil. In that post I resolved that instead of climbing mountains I would go along tackling things one step at a time. I would find an easier path, around the mountains. Looking back now, 18 months into the drama of this separation, I realise that I have already climbed some of those mountains that at the time seemed unconquerable; the mountain of the emotional turmoil of the separation (most of the time), the mountain of the abhorrence of the divorce process (almost), and the mountain of learning to live my life all by myself. Only one of the four mountains I wrote down that day remained – getting my finances as a single person back on track. Step by step, mountain by mountain, I am gradually getting there.

This is a list I have compiled as to the character traits that I have read help you bounce back after set-backs:

• Positive outlook
• Resistance in the face of failure
• Firm moral convictions and code of ethics
• Ability to plan ahead and problem solve
• Ability to see adversities as challenges to overcome rather than obstacles
• Belief that one’s own effort can change things
• A lifetime goal or interest in developing a talent

Like the lamb in this video clip sent to me by a fellow blogger;

Yes, I think my bounce will come.

“More and more I have come to admire resilience.
Not the simple resilience of a pillow, where
foam returns over and over to the same shape,
but the sinuous tenacity of a tree,
finding the light newly blocked on one side,
it turns to another.”
Jane Hirschfield.