Resilience

As a life building quality, resilience can also be said to be the 'bedrock of personal empowerment'-because almost all the other qualities that people pursue in their self-empowerment efforts ultimately lead to resilience.

Most self development efforts, for instance, are aimed at developing the partakers' self esteem. Yet one of the least appreciated -but most fundamental-characteristics of a person with properly developed self-esteem is resilience; which should, among other things, see them cope with the ups and downs that characterize human relationships with ease.

As we describe resilience as the ability to rebound from setbacks, it is important to note that being resilient doesn't mean failing to acknowledge the pain of such setbacks (or pretending to be insensitive to such pain). On the contrary, being resilient means actually letting ourselves fall apart-if that is what the setbacks cause us to do (like where we are looking at a bereavement, major loss of income or love or something of that stature)-but then not getting stuck in that downcast state, but rather sooner than later recreating a strong sense of stability within ourselves which should see us not only get back to our previous balanced state of being, but actually a higher, and even more balanced state of being.

While resilience can be easily described as the life building quality that enables us to rebound after setbacks and build upon the experiences we gain from the various challenges we face in life, it is important to note that it (resilience) is usually a result of other important qualities in a person, qualities that of essence need to be present in a person for that person to be termed as resilient.

One of those qualities, as mentioned earlier, is a high self esteem, without which resilience (especially in interpersonal relationships) becomes almost impossible. Then there is a sense of humor, especially the ability to laugh at oneself and at laugh as another important building block for resilience. Openness of mind (where we do away with most of the 'shoulds,' 'musts,' and 'oughts' in our minds) also goes a long way towards developing resilience, because a closed/inflexible mind is very easily battered by the ups and downs of life. Needless to say, too, is the fact that resilience calls for a high degree of discipline in the person in question, as it calls for a well developed ability to tolerate stress without giving too much into it. Good interpersonal skills, too, might go a long way towards the development of resilience, because a person with such good interpersonal skills is likely to have a great network of friends, and friends do come in handy when one is facing challenges and setbacks of any sort, if only for the moral support they are bound to offer. Hopefulness and the ability to forgive (and really let go) too are other important building blocks of resilience as is insight into one's own and other's feelings, whose development typically starts with humility and honest self-awareness.

Mention of the fact that resilience leads to a greater ability to cope with the ups and downs of life might not make it look very attractive, but the benefits that in turn stem from such an enhanced ability to cope with the ups and downs of life are sure to.

These 'further benefits' of resilience include the potential for financial and social success that being resilient comes with. Indeed the personal stories of the people we consider to be successful in various spheres of life (as narrated, for instance, in their autobiographical accounts) often turn out to be simply stories of resilience. This is because the way life works is such that one almost always has to experience a setback, or more commonly a series of such setbacks, before finally getting to experience success in any endeavor.

With regard to the financial success, for instance, it is a well established fact that the ability to succeed in business (which is many people's only way out of financial struggle) calls for great reserves of resilience, that can see one survive the ups and down of the business life, especially the early stages of it as it is still being nurtured, and at point where the business is usually not yet differentiated from its owner, so that its failures turn out to be seen as the owner's failures.

ith regard to personal success, too, it turns out that without resilience (and the ability to forgive and let go, which we saw to be one of its building blocks) it might turn out to be extremely difficult to maintain any interpersonal relationships, because it is almost always a guaranteed fact that any person you get to interact with will soon or later 'wrong you'-typically not deliberately - with a further trend observed when a person is seeking to develop relationships (say romantic relationships) where one is bound to encounter quite a bit of rejection, and where lack of resilience could see them simply give up the whole relationship-seeking venture; and turn into hermits!

Talking of the benefits of resilience, it might also be mentioned that this is actually even a quality that can lead to good health (both physical and psychological), inasmuch as it helps one cope with the setbacks of life gallantly. A person who is put down by every low in life, on the other hand, is likely to eventually slip into a depression (since life is really a series of setbacks)-and this could even see their immunity getting compromised, making them more prone to physical illnesses.