Resilience. It has become a kind of buzzword in the last decade or so and has been packaged into self-help content and pushed alongside mindfulness but, how many actually have it and how do they know?

https://i.imgur.com/In6HXt4.jpg

Of course, it is impossible to really tell and even though people may think they are training it, it isn't until they are in a position that requires it will they know if it has had an effect. Even then, Is it possible to know?

Yesterday I wrote [a little post](https://steemit.com/philosophy/@tarazkp/heatless-fire-the-catalyst-of-control) about the outrage many seem to feel at the smallest of slights and this points at a lack of resilience, not an increase. We seem less and less capable of dealing with negative and emotional hardship even though we have more and more access and training to prepare for it. I think this points to the situation that *experience* trumps *book smarts.*

Later on I am going to write a post about a related but different topic but to order my thoughts, I wanted to get a little down first. I find that it helps me process faster. Posting it here also gives space for additional thoughts and perspectives to be pushed by the audience. This in itself is part of my experience and a way for me to better round it out. 

Now, back to resilience. The problem is that we are increasingly going un-battle-tested even though our information volume is going up. Our insights are no longer *ours,* they are learned information that we have never really had to put into practice and when we do face challenge, we think that those challenges are of a high level, even if they are not. 

For example, I wrote a post the other week mentioning having a suitcase stolen in Amsterdam whilst on holiday with my wife. Now, that caused us some headaches and felt terrible in the moment but, as we walked around the streets she and I talked about how minor it really was in the scheme of things. Just a day earlier we had toured the building where Anne Frank and her family were holed up in an attic for two years hiding from the Nazis. She was just a kid.

Many people still to this day face a multitude of hardships yet, those who are training to become resilient rarely face anywhere near that depth of challenge and they do it to overcome what others might see as small concerns. It is interesting I think that those who really need the resources don't get them but, they *do* learn from experience, they *do* get battle tested. Perhaps this prepares them for some future hardships and may provide a competitive advantage.

I think that for many of us though, we are becoming soft, hence the rage at irrelevant things and our concern of trivialities. We get angry over what we see in the news about the inequalities of the world but, without ever having really faced them at that depth, are we capable of acting well? Are we capable of acting at all?

What I do know is that our experience in this world is our own and how we react to what we face is something we *can own*. Resilience is an important skill to learn but it is also something that is difficult to understand without really facing the challenges. Most people aren't even comfortable *thinking* about difficult or stressful situations, how do they plan on coping if they do actually arise?

Thoughts to organise thoughts.

Taraz
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