Strong Enough: Rethinking What Resilience Really Looks Like
It’s been one of those weeks when the news cycle appears to have been designed by a committee of doom merchants with a talent for melodrama. Every headline has the punch of a heavyweight, and by Wednesday you’re ducking instinctively when you read the news, as if a stray paragraph might actually leap out and hit you. It’s tempting in moments like these to think resilience means standing there steely eyed, clenching your jaw, and waiting for the storm to pass. But really, that’s the cinematic version — the Hollywood cut. The truth is rather less glamorous and, fortunately, far more achievable.
Resilience is not about being made of granite. It’s about being made of flesh and nerves and the occasional cup of coffee, and still moving along. It’s not grit-your-teeth endurance. It’s rewiring gently, and often.
I was reminded of this during the week, walking through a city that seemed to be simultaneously collapsing and thriving. On one side of the street, a scaffolded building was shedding bricks with all the grace of a drunk unicyclist. On the other, a florist had arranged buckets of sunflowers that shouted “Cheer up!” to anyone within a five-yard radius. Resilience, I thought, is much more like the florist than the scaffolding. It’s not about holding up a crumbling façade. It’s about planting something that insists on being alive, even if the pavement is cracked.
The city, in fact, makes a good case study. It doesn’t stay upright because of heroic feats of steel and stone. It survives because someone, somewhere, keeps repainting the door frames, fixing the traffic lights, and planting trees that insist on growing even when dogs insist on… well, you know. Resilience isn’t one grand gesture; it’s the sum of little recalibrations.
If you’ve ever watched an electrician at work, you’ll know they don’t fix the whole power grid in one go. They fiddle with one connection, test it, adjust, and then move on. That’s how humans really get through hard times too. Not by giving the world a steely stare and growling (no matter how tempting), but by quietly adjusting a thought here, a habit there, until the current runs again.
Take this man I saw in the café, who looked like he’d just lost a particularly bruising argument with the universe. He stared into his espresso as if hoping for divine intervention. Then his phone pinged, and he smiled — a small smile, but real — at a message that probably just said something like “Don’t forget milk.” That’s rewiring. A reminder that ordinary connections, however small, keep the current flowing.
And then, because the city enjoys throwing in a parable when you least expect it, a busker appeared on the corner playing a battered accordion. The tune was both hopelessly out of tune and heartbreakingly sincere. Passersby grinned in spite of themselves. I gave him a pound, not out of charity but gratitude. Because resilience is also being reminded that imperfect music in the middle of chaos can be exactly what you needed.
There exists a universal law to the constant traveller, you’ll know the trick is not to look for monuments but for moments. The man playing the accordion was a moment of sorts, only mobile and slightly wheezy.
The trouble is, resilience has been branded as a form of moral weightlifting. The more pain you can lift, the more impressive you are. But real resilience is closer to optimism in disguise. It’s taking the next bus, even if it might be late. It’s buying tulips when the headlines are shouting catastrophe. It’s laughing at a joke that wasn’t all that funny, because you needed the laugh more than you needed the wit.
There’s a reason clichés like “this too shall pass” have stuck around: they’re true. But there’s another truth just as important: while it’s passing, you don’t have to be heroic. You just have to keep rewiring gently, and often.
So if this week has felt like too much, try this:
Walk outside and let a street corner surprise you.
Buy fruit that looks too colourful to be real and eat it like a child who doesn’t know what a vitamin is.
Phone someone and talk about anything except the news.
And if you see a busker, listen for a moment. Even if the music is terrible. Especially if the music is terrible.
Because resilience isn’t a statue carved from stone. It’s a city alive with cracks, paint, flowers, scaffolding, and an accordion that can’t quite hold a tune.
Strong enough, in other words, isn’t about being unbreakable. It’s about being breakable and carrying on anyway.
And with that in mind, perhaps next week’s headlines will be slightly easier to read.