“Resilient” Isn’t the Compliment You Think It Is

Many people make the mistake of seeing resilience as a kind of inborn trait. One that you inherit, like eye color or freckles or height. While there may be some aspects of resilience that are inherited(inherent optimism, overall energy levels), your intentional mindset and proactive behavior towards change matters more.

As Diane Coutu so eloquently explains in her luminous “How Resilience Works,” “Resilient people possess three characteristics — a staunch acceptance of reality; a deep belief, often buttressed by strongly held values, that life is meaningful; and an uncanny ability to improvise. You can bounce back from hardship with just one or two of these qualit

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I study resilience as it relates to disaster response, and contemporary scholars are more or less in agreement that the concept of resilience is used as a way to place responsibility that belongs with the government onto individuals and communities that are hit the hardest by various extreme events (almost always low income communities of color). O... See more