Resilience

I've never been comfortable hosting a pity party for myself. I'm aware that there are so many others who have had a far more difficult life than I have. At the same time, I encourage others to share their stories and remind them that their stories really do matter. So there is a bit of hypocrisy here.

Sure, my childhood wasn't ideal. My father was gone by the time I was five. My mom tried to raise us on her own, but was either physically or emotionally absent as she sought her own validation elsewhere. In our small village of 87 people, the house my mom, my brother and I lived in was falling apart: broken windows, holes in the floor, a ceiling that was falling down, torn up carpet. It was a mess. Money was always in short supply and while the stepfathers in my life helped pay the bills, their various forms of abuse weren't helpful. But we made do and somehow got by.

I recently attended some talks at the Chicago Ideas Week. One of the topics was on resilience. A number of people shared their stories and I was completely floored. The adversity that these folks overcame was baffling. But they did it. As I listened, I realized that I was not only inspired by their ability to overcome, but there was another gift I walked away with: the language to talk about my own resiliency.

Our stories really do matter. It's not a competition about whose is the most heartbreaking or soul-crushing. Ultimately, it's most important that we did overcome and that we took what we learned to help others do the same.

If you had asked me before how I overcame the hurdles throughout my life, I would have said, "I don't know. I just did." But after the Chicago Ideas talks, I was shown that there was something that I did that I didn't even realize I was doing: celebrating the small things.

Think about that for a moment. Somehow, even through the toughest times, you have come through. One way you did this, whether you were cognizant of it at the time (I wasn't) was celebrating small things. What were those things for you?

For me, I can recall as a child and youth, it was the simple things. Doing my own laundry so I could savor the smell of clean clothes. A home cooked meal. Riding my bike on country roads with the wind blowing in my hair and all the farm smells filling my nose. (I know, they aren't for everyone) The crunch of fallen leaves under my feet in autumn. The sound of Roy Orbison's smooth voice on the stereo in my bedroom as he went into his falsetto and my soul sang with him.

You have these things, too. Identifying what they are and learning to practice them intentionally will help you to get through the tough times, both now and in the future.

Like the words to the song Canto Alla Vita so aptly capture:

I sing to life, and to it's tragic beauty. To pain and to strife, let all that dances through me. The rise and the fall, I've lived through it all.

We often can't change life. But we can choose whether it changes us.