Resiliency Limits

Resiliency is not a universally helpful concept.  Perseverance is not always our best move.  Some objectives are not realistic and should be ditched as goals.  Sometimes resiliency means being realistic and giving up.  I do not like saying this, but it is true.

In my lifetime I have had a couple of humongous disappointments.  Both of which are totally predictable based on how I see the world.  I love collaboration and community building in a world that often prefers to compare and compete.  I idealize the notion that if we all work together our outcomes will immediately improve because a bunch of heads thinking, feeling and doing together is better than a solo operator any day of the week.

However.  This has blinded me to the fact that this is not everyone’s reality.  In both of my most life-altering disappointments I can see how my eagerness to collaborate over-rode my instincts about my collaborators.  I hung in too long in the relationships when I should have acknowledged that my goals were completely NOT the goals of others.  This does not make others bad and me good or vice versa; it means we are different.  It is only a problem when one or the other of us (me in this case) expects someone to be someone they are not.

I was wrong.  I unconsciously asked others to play by my rules.  I pushed.  I pulled.  I moved away from my own core value of collaboration and tried to control the situation.  This is all on me.  It cost me and others who love me a lot of time, energy, and angst.  

Today, I am more cautious about this collaboration mindset.  I do not just assume that if you say you want to play nice in the sandbox that I need to go out and get us a bigger box and more sand.  I am learning that resiliency has limits.  These limits are naturally occurring if we pay attention to all 11 skill sets associated with resiliency.  If I had paid more attention to self-care, and less attention to this inclination to build a bigger sandbox, then I would not have experienced the heartbreak I did.  BUT I also would not have learned what I learned either - so you see?  

We end up back at resilience - with limits.  Because learning from our mistakes is what?  Resilient behavior!!