Third World America - Arianna Huffington [78]
Luckily, resilience, like fearlessness, is a muscle we can build up. The more we use it, the stronger it becomes, and ultimately, how we deal with adversity depends on how much we have developed this inner strength.
Dominique Browning, who lost her job as editor in chief of House and Garden, describes the long months after being knocked off her career path: “Privately, I was in a whiplashing tailspin.108 My nightmare had finally come true. For years, I had a profound dread of unemployment that went way beyond worrying about how to pay the bills. I would like to say that this was because of the insecure nature of magazine publishing, but my anxiety had more to do with my own neuroses—though I didn’t think of it that way. Work had become the scaffolding of my life. It was what I counted on. It held up the floor of my moods, kept the facade intact. I always worried that if I didn’t have work, I would sink into abject torpor.”
Indeed, after being fired she went through “months of depressed sloth.”109 But, slowly, she began to take daily walks, sometimes for miles every day, giving herself lectures: “Buck up.110 Just because something has failed doesn’t mean I am a failure. Just because something has ended doesn’t mean it was all a mistake. Just because I have been rejected doesn’t mean I am worthless and unlovable. Sound familiar? It would if you or anyone you know has gone through a divorce. I had hauled myself through one of those many years earlier. This felt like the same thing. Worse. A divorce you choose. Unemployment chooses you.”
Obviously, faith helps people develop the resilience they need in difficult times, but so do simple things such as learning to reduce stress by unplugging and recharging, getting enough sleep, and the walks and daily lectures like Browning gave herself.
Eventually, things turned around for her.111 “I hate to be the one to bring up silver linings, or worse, windows opening while doors are slamming,” she says, but over time she came to feel as if she had grown a new taproot, “one that reaches deeper into nourishing soil. I am more resilient. If I had to pin it down, I would say I finally fell open to the miracle of this world.”
Jim Laman of Holland, Michigan, is another great example of how resilience can get you through tough times. He spent twenty-one years working at furniture manufacturer Herman Miller before he was “downsized” in the economic tailspin that followed 9/11. He found his next job at a smaller company, but in 2006 he abruptly lost it in a mass layoff. “There was absolutely zero warning,” he says. “My benefits ended that night at midnight, as did my pay. I was devastated. Never saw it coming. They even kept the bonus that I had earned for the past year. I was bitter for a long time about that and it still bothers me, as the company was supposedly so ‘family oriented.’ I guess that came with a caveat!”
Laman found another job, this time at a manufacturer of truck transmissions in southwest Michigan. It was sixty-five miles away, but he kept his gas bill down by riding his motorcycle, even through treacherous weather, which saved him about sixty dollars per week. Then, in November 2008, as the economy reeled from the financial crisis, his company issued a round of pink slips—and once again, with just twenty-four hours’ notice and a month before Christmas, he was out of a job.
“It was not a merry Christmas,” he remembers, “but we got a few gifts for the kids and a free tree to put them under. I started selling things on eBay to help make ends meet, and have continued to do so sporadically to this day. Classic Herman Miller furniture is quite valuable, so we sold a few pieces and I parted with a classic Saab and the parts I had collected for it for many years. I’ve sold about five thousand dollars’ worth a year on eBay, and it has helped tremendously. In the meantime, my wife lost her contract job at Herman Miller, which was another blow to us. During this time we were