Resilience
By: Beau Everett
Tags: Pandemic, Resilience

May 26, 2020

In the midst of this pandemic, people are anxious and uneasy, uncertain about what the future holds. There are plenty of reasons to be, especially if you live in the U.S., let alone New York — double-digit unemployment; trillion dollar federal deficits; many months if not years of social distancing; and dire predictions for the restaurant, hotel, travel, and entertainment industries.

How can we be optimistic in the face of such circumstances? Is it rational to be hopeful when all of the data suggest otherwise? Yes, it is. Optimism, as it turns out, is essential for mental health. In two different studies of war prisoners, optimism was actually identified as the single most important predictor of resilience, that is, how successfully they recover from adversity. (1, 2)

Resilience is more than just survival. It’s thriving in the face of hardship and loss, even unimaginable loss. Resilient people and organizations can lean into a setback, even with limited resources, relying on their own strengths and skills, to see opportunities in setbacks and rebound as stronger and more resourceful.

Resilience is how we look through a crisis with determined, dispositional optimism to form the most positive vision of what’s possible on the other side. Absent resilience, we remain mired in the crisis and waste valuable energy looking behind us rather than in front of us, when forward is actually the only direction we can go.

Looking Backward Doesn’t Get You Anywhere

Years ago, we lived next door to a family with a three-year-old son. Whenever they would leave the apartment, a complicated process would ensue, which seemed to involve removing all their belongings from the apartment, piling them in the corridor, then putting many of them back into the apartment before eventually being able to leave. They once explained to us, apparently feeling the need to rationalize this ritual, that Ben wasn’t “good with transitions.” These parents weren’t fostering resilience in Ben. If he wasn’t being taught how to successfully manage leaving the apartment, what foundation would he have for navigating more stressful situations he may encounter in the future?

Today, Ben may be deciding what to do about attending college in the fall — in light of COVID. He may be thinking that fall semester will likely not be what he expected six months ago. If his parents are willing to support him, he may be considering a gap year, even though his options for how he might spend this particular year (with limited travel opportunities, economic uncertainty, record unemployment) are admittedly dim. Basically, he is literally considering putting his life on hold, waiting for the world to fit his expectations.

Looking Ahead Isn’t Easy

Christina Paxson, president of Brown University, wrote an op-ed in The New York Times about reopening Brown and other universities this fall. Her argument was based upon the dual premise that, first, remote learning has presented untenable financial, practical, and psychological challenges for students; and second, failing to reopen would throw higher education into an existential crisis.

She explained it won’t be easy. “Our students will have to understand that until a vaccine is developed, campus life will be different. Students and employees may have to wear masks. Large lecture classes may remain online even after campuses open. Traditional aspects of collegiate life — athletic competitions, concerts, and yes, parties — may occur, but in much different fashions…. Taking these necessary steps will be difficult and costly, and it will force institutions to innovate as we have never done before. But colleges and universities are up to the challenge.”

In an op-ed in The Harvard Crimson, Carine M. Hajjar, class of ’21, expressed her opinion on the matter more bluntly. “…I do not, under any circumstances, want to waste a semester at Harvard online. And frankly, it seems that nobody does….” Of course, not. No one wanted this pandemic either.

“Let’s face it — if we go online,” she continued, “a huge portion of the student population will seek time off…. Going online is not only a terrible idea; going back to campus without a social life will not suffice either. In each of my classes, professors and students alike spend a moment each class lamenting the loss of the in-person authenticity that is undoubtedly a highlight of our education.”

I do not want to underestimate the toll that this disruption has taken on society, least of all on students. But we would all be better served looking ahead rather than looking back. The college experience for the class of ’21 will simply not look like the experience for the class of ’19, no matter how or when Harvard elects to reopen. The world has been changed irrevocably beyond our control.

Looking Through A Crisis Is Even Harder

The way forward then is to focus on what we can control, and the only thing we can really control is how we choose to respond to external forces and events. Resilient, adaptable people will lean into this crisis to see the unanticipated opportunities that present themselves.

The obvious place to start is taking stock of the ways in which this pandemic has changed our lives in a positive way. I’ve heard people say they actually have more meaningful, more intentional contact with friends and colleagues. They are more aware of the need to communicate and connect on a regular basis. Is it possible that we are more conscious of showing empathy? Of being kind to one another? Now when we say, Be well, we mean it literally.

We’ve also learned how quickly and effectively we can adapt, if forced to. Things that might have been unheard of a few months ago, actually happened. My daughter is taking ballet and Pilates via web conference. I’ve attended super fun Zoom birthday parties, enormously engaging virtual galas, and genuinely moving remote graduations. Obviously, it would have been our preference to be together in person, but challenging ourselves to celebrate meaningfully in more creative ways yielded surprising results.

Companies that didn’t believe in working from home, suddenly had no choice but to embrace it. Brokerage houses that always required large, open trading floors for efficient trading are now seeing record-breaking trading volumes with brokers working from home. We’ve seen a world without commutes and witnessed the planet beginning to heal itself.

Perhaps the most responsive professionals to crisis by training, healthcare professionals adapted in ways unimaginable — creating, renovating, and retrofitting spaces into intensive and critical care units; converting conference rooms and parking lots into testing and triage facilities; rapidly enlarging emergency rooms, adding ICU beds, and increasing oxygen supply capacity — all to take care of people with a disease they’d never seen before.

Of course, it’s not all good. And we need to be realistic. But according to David Rothkopf, professor of international relations and journalist, “Optimism is realism.” He explains, “That may be a hard concept to embrace in the middle of a rapidly worsening global pandemic and a crushing economic crisis. But history shows it is the right one. In fact, without that point of view, there very likely would not be any history at all.”

Seeing what we are capable of — and letting go of the impossible — allows us to access our emotional strength and move forward with intentional and determined optimism about the future. If we can’t envision a positive, new kind of future for ourselves, it’s even less likely that we’ll ever be able to make it a reality.

1 Segovia, F., Moore, J.L., Linnville, S.E., Hoyt, R.E., & Hain, R.E. (2012). Optimism predicts resilience in repatriated prisoners of war: A 37-year longitudinal study, Journal of Traumatic Stress, vol. 25, issue 3.

2 Southwick, Steven M.; Charney, Dennis S. (Cambridge University Press, 2012). Resilience: The Science of Mastering Life’s Greatest Challenges, 1st Edition.