Folks, I do my best to plan ahead, to live smart and avoid dumb, to sidestep as many of life’s pitfalls and traps as I can. However, inevitably, into every life a little rain must fall and then, to quote Benjamin Franklin: “What cannot be avoided must be embraced.”

That is when a lifetime of building a toolbox brimming with life management skills comes in handy; reach in and pull-out resilience, the art of dealing with an unpleasant or painful situation with good grace.

Focus on what you can control, don’t catastrophize, stay positive and solution-oriented, ask for and accept help, keep things in perspective, believe in yourself. Philosophically, it is a blend of stoicism (staying strong without wasting energy on resentment at the whims of fate) and pragmatism (accepting what cannot be changed). And above all, keep up your momentum, don’t let yourself become becalmed: “If you’re going through hell, keep going.”

Closing Quotes:

“Turn your wounds into wisdom.”
– Oprah Winfrey
“Fall seven times, stand up eight.”
– Japanese Proverb
“Action builds resilience. Inaction stokes fear.”
– Shane Parrish
“Resilience is a precious skill. People who have it tend to also have three underlying advantages: a belief that they can influence life events, a tendency to find meaningful purpose in life’s turmoil, and a conviction that they can learn from both positive and negative experiences.”
– Amanda Ripley, The Unthinkable: Who Survives when Disaster Strikes – and Why
As always, I share what I most want and need to learn.
– Nathan S. Collier

Note: Every effort has been made to properly source any 3rd person material. I am, however, a voracious reader. If anyone finds any unattributed material, pls let me know asap and I will be delighted to give credit where credit is due.

“All intelligent thoughts have already been thought; what is necessary is only to try to think them again.”
– Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 1749-1832