I’ve run into a phenomenon of late that made me wonder are we as a society losing the ability to bounce back from difficult situations? An instance came up where I submitted a proposal for a book conference that shall remain nameless, was accepted, and then learned that everyone who applied was accepted. This meant double the number of presenters for the time allotted. As a result, some “presenters” would not be presenting at all but merely standing next to a small bill board of their presentation. The current podcast episode explores the implications.
I was confused because I was perfectly willing to face the consequence of not making the cut. I’m think, maybe incorrectly, that the people holding the conference felt that the people submitting were so fragile they would not be able to endure rejection. Never mind that these are the people putting out material that is supposed to help the rest of us deal with setbacks.
Now before you think that I’m encouraging being rude or judgmental toward those around you, I want you to understand that a certain amount of adversity is actually good for us as human beings. When we create a world where everyone feels they deserve to be told that he or she is a genius, we set ourselves up for those “Emperor has no clothes” moments that are without a doubt painful and sometimes life altering.
Psychological resilience is defined as “An individual’s tendency to cope with adversity. This coping may result in the individual “bouncing back” to a previous state or maintaining persistence in a quest.” What also comes to mind is Carol Dweck’s book “Mindset” where she demonstrates that children continually told they are “good students” will resist attempting tasks that contradict that mindset. On the other hand, if a child is told they are hard workers or persistent, then they will work to fulfill that mindset and attempt tasks that stretch their abilities.
Many of the world’s great achievements have come about because someone’s expectation was disappointed, asked why, then set about doggedly working to create the results they wanted or realized they have discovered something even better. I fall back on a tennis analogy and mention Serena Williams, love or hate her. In 2012 she showed up to the French Open thinking she could play herself into condition and the result was, she was eliminated in the first round. This was a huge embarrassment for a top 10 player and forced her to confront the fact that she was out of shape and not playing at the highest level. As she put it: “It was a wake up call”, and she then set about better conditioning which resulted in her going out and winning everything in sight.
I fear we are losing resilience because we now live in a world of instant gratification where it is assumed the is little if any requirement to struggle. This is not how the real world works because you often run into that road block you were not expecting that knocks you on your under worked butt. Getting up time and time again, means you have to first accept that adversity is to be expected, and then challenged; often time after time. That working toward overcoming a failure is what causes us to stretch and get better. It means accepting that each of us can be quite good at something… if we are willing to persist.
In the case of that Conference; if they had rejected my presentation I would have worked harder to be accepted the next time. As a result of their actions, I’m not going to submit to them again because the game is rigged toward the lowest level possible: mediocre masquerading as excellence. So don’t be afraid to fail, because each failure helps you push closer to the thing you desire.
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