As we hiked in the desert, under a broad scorching sun, we had to ask ourselves, why did we choose to spend our afternoon like this? Bugs were flying around and biting. Sand in the shoes. Sunburn inevitable. Not enough water for anyone to drink (epic parenting fail). Yes, the formations at Arches National Park are beautiful, but I don’t think anyone in our party felt like they outweighed the effort required to view them. Sometimes the juice is not worth the squeeze, you know what I mean?
Except, we think it is. As we explained to the boys—once we were fed and watered again and more likely to be open to reason—we purposefully put ourselves in uncomfortable positions as a way of training ourselves for those times in which we have no choice but to endure them.
In the dojo, we are (in)famous for refusing to let kids and adults alike get a drink of water during class. There will be times, we warn, when you won’t be able to have all the water that your body requests. You want to practice pushing through those times without, as one of my senseis used to say, “crumbling like a wet taco.”
On this day, 7.2 miles and 4.5 hours in the midday desert seemed like a tremendous opportunity to practice such resilience with our little tacos.
We all do this in so many ways, right? We run on treadmills so that our hearts can bear us out if/when we ever need them to. We lift weights so we can help our neighbor move his pool table. We drag ourselves through final exams so we know we can burn the midnight oil on projects that matter most to us.
Zig Ziglar used to say, “When you are tough on yourself, life is going to be infinitely easier on you.”
And so, we should structure our lives and those of our children to be a series of challenges. If we do, we can be confident that we are always still growing. Heck, my mom is going skydiving for the first time this week, just shy of 70 years old! Our strength today is derived from the trials that we put ourselves through in the past.
What do you think is the prevailing arc of American culture with regards to the cultivation of resilience? Are we moving in the direction of challenging our children more or less? What will be the logical outgrowth of that trend? Will it lead to more or less resilient adults?
I think culturally, we in the US are moving closer and closer to sacrificing independence in favor of expediency. We surrender our privacy so that we can have more services to command from the comfort of our couch, we shop online more than at brick and mortar stores, and now we don’t even want to drive anywhere, we are waiting for the dawn of driverless vehicles. I remember a time when I had to stand up and change the channel on the TV by the wa . Today we can unlock the house door with our phone and command the blinds to open with an Alexa. I think we are learning laziness and establishing a trend that has us abdicating endurance and stamina in favor of comfort and laziness. But that’s just me writing this on my phone sitting on my couch.
Samer, I laughed aloud at that last sentence. Next time, do us a favor and write while practicing some kata or something, okay?
what is the ratio of suffering to comfort that is correct to build strong people? good questions to ask knowing there will always be lots of variability between individuals. i myself appreciate hardship – to make me stronger and not kill me… how do we balance between the comfort and suffering… perhaps with lots of compassion?
Jen, we’ve been practicing a mantra together lately–that pain is inevitable but suffering is optional. I don’t think I recommend trying to suffer, but rather inflicting some challenges to practice NOT suffering when in pain. Yes? And compassion is always good too. I find myself wondering how much compassion to give, whether it is in conflict with encouraging our kids to dwell not on tough times. Jack had a major tooth pulled this morning and I put a reassuring hand on his ankle, then thought how I went through a similar procedure with nobody by my side and a lot of fear. Did I rob him of a strengthening experience?