Delayed Resilience

"Adversity is the first path to truth." -Lord Byron

It seems like it was just yesterday when I associated my worth and well-being with doing well in school, working hard, ensuring that I completed all my homework and all the other tasks I had taken up, being polite and jovial with my friends, and so on and so forth. You get the picture. 

While such a cause-effect relationship between the two pillars of your universe that are as independent as they are inter-dependent helps to keep you fuelled and motivated, it may cause you to feel that the cracking of one pillar signals the faulty foundations of the other, and vice-versa. That's when the building can seem to collapse- the walls are reeking plaster and paint, crumbling and cracking, you feel like you have wrought destruction, and bam! Thud! You allow self-doubt to permeate your stronghold like an eerie trickle of muddy rainwater that can peel the plaster right off. If you don't realize your error soon enough, you're quite likely to really bring about the destruction that you fancied you'd foreseen. Fancied, mind you. There was nothing as such. 

This kind of false sense of strength and worth is very real. We all are disillusioned by it at some point of our lives or the other. Yet, we grow stronger by recognizing it for what it is- a dangerous, elusive illusion.

While the threshold that I crossed seems to be just midnight, I know, and feel, that it was indeed a year. A year of confinement, lockdown, isolation, self-work and introspection. About a year and a half or two years ago, when peace reigned in the world, little things, like not being selected for a debate team at school, or not doing as well as I had expected in a test, would me irk me to no end. I'd feel guilty at giving time to something and not to the other and letting the other slip out of my hands. I'd feel inadequate if my scores weren't what I had expected my hard work to merit. I'd feel incomplete if I wasn't volunteering for at least one school activity in the year, believing that my holistic growth was getting left behind.

One day, when after an unsatisfactory English exam, I returned home, sulky-faced and teary-eyed, to the shocking, saddening, heart-shattering news of my close friend's passing away due to disease, I felt inordinately grieved, naturally, but I also felt guilty. Guilty that I was obsessing over trivial things like the outcome of exams or the selection in Inter-House events when there were families fighting the grief of the loss of a loved one. The harsh truth of the transience of our existence struck me candidly. I also felt something like the pleasant song of gratitude singing in my heart- gratitude for each day of my life, for the people around me, for the things I had. It would not be easy to make this my primary anthem- it would take reconditioning, but I had reached the turning-point. The moment of epiphany. And there was no looking back. 

These were pre-pandemic times. Yet, there were changes. I consciously tried to put things in perspective, to count my blessings, to feel good about myself and what I had, in the coming months. There were, however, obstructions. While this may seem easy on paper, when faced by a situation that makes you cower to it, it is half as much. I knew where I had to reach, and I was getting there. To a place where I wouldn't feel like everything about what I had achieved and done so far was unreal. To a place where I would joyfully credit myself and those I am indebted to, without a hint of remorse or guilt.

But it was taking time. And what's more, this change in mindset needed space. It couldn't be brought about in the face of multiple situations causing a rebound. 

That's when the lockdown happened. The only likeable thing about a pandemic that is wreaking havoc everywhere, because it gave us time for self-reflection.

"All the adversity I've had in my life, all the troubles and obstacles, have strengthened me... You may not realize it when it happens, but a kick in the teeth may be the best thing for you." -Walt Disney

The lockdown made me realize that what my confidence had been in need of was a touch of adversity. A challenge. At the same time, it needed a normalizing factor- something that would bring us all on the same page. Most importantly, it needed space to grow and flourish.

Under the hood of normalcy, we're hardly challenging ourselves, we're hardly putting our innate character and strength to the test. We keep doing our duties, and there's the feeling of being on a clockwork, and when the clockwork gets a bit rusty, you're exhausted and unhappy that you didn't have the energy to sustain your clockwork-motion.

But here's the thing- maybe that's just not the best, nor the most conducive, way to function! That's hard to believe, you would have said, in pre-lockdown times. I would have said, yeah, easier said than done, I've got homework to finish. 

And here comes lockdown. Some time, some space. A lot of angst, anger, bitterness, sure, but with all of that, the inevitable truth that this pandemic is here to stay. Resistance to that truth. I don't think so! Why can't people mask up? With all of that, however, steely resilience. Creeping through the veins as if having longed to for a long, long while, and finally given the opening, the chance.

Delayed resilience. It seems a bit far-fetched, doesn't it? But I think it's true. I think it's what the world was wanting. What our well-being was wanting. 

Something to remind us, that strength is seen in building more strength. Strength is when one cares for one's health. Strength is when one begins to care for the health of others.

Strength is not being a perfect clockwork-mouse. I don't think such a piece even exists. Everyone needs winding up, and at some point, we need to ditch the clockwork and find our own engine, running it happily, at our own pace.

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