Definition: The capacity to withstand or to recover quickly from difficulties. The ability of a substance or object to spring back into shape; elasticity without breaking.
We’ve asked ourselves these questions: How can we bounce back from our world’s problems from Covid, social unrest and inequalities, the brink of country, monetary and business collapse? Can we have the ability to navigate our world’s complex problems so that we move forward as Humanity?
In the last two years, we’ve seen all of these things play a part in 2020 and 2021. And yet, there was hope inside 2022. To be sure, we are still recovering from some very tough places, but we’ve seen our ability to move forward with smaller fits and starts, yet always moving in the right direction. 2022 was the year we discovered Resilience and the ability to see through the dim fog of our problems to find some brilliant rays of hope on a further shore. It is to this place that we continually plot our course and walk, and re-plot and re-walk them amidst our collective pain. Resilience helps Humanity stay connected to each other.
We’ve had to face the fact that there never really was a “normal” at all; what we thought was “normal” were just the shadows of what felt less intrusive in our lives. That way, we could say that we experienced a range of circumstances that were more comfortable than others while not admitting to ourselves that everything had changed. In human development, these were incremental progress steps, yet always marking forward movement.
This word, Resilience, is somewhat of an oxymoron. Its root is born out of the pain of this earthly life – and living inside it – to the point that we overcome the collective pain to get firmly fixed into ever-evolving newer and hopefully higher equilibriums. We’ve doggedly kept ourselves pointed toward a True North position so that we wouldn’t lose hope, lose our nerve, or lose each other in the mess of life. But the word also has the uncanny capacity to equip us to look for more pain to overcome so that we might flex our newly found Resiliency muscles again.
Resilience is a necessary function of the human heart. The ability to overcome great odds, while moving us forward as Humanity in this wonderful dance of life. Let us not lose the lessons we’ve needed to learn in 2020 and 2021, but by being warm-hearted and welcoming to all, we reach for that human touch that binds us all together.
Let’s press on for Humanity’s sake. That which we’ve been given has been for our good, even if it caused us great pain, heartbreak, and anguish. But, for the uphill climb ahead of us, we are going to continue to need fresh supplies of this word so that we don’t lose momentum or the ability to reach that other side of our communal shore. Resilience equips us for our future.
What was your word for 2022?