Resilience

I've linked an editorial from the CDC Journal, Preventing Chronic Disease. It's a meditation on resilience and the differences between generations ~ the GI Generation, the Boomer Generation ~ and what we can expect from them as they grow old.

The concept is pretty simple. The GI Generation has resilience woven into their DNA. They survived the Great Depression, they fought in WWII. If anything can be said for them, it is that they are resilient. Boomers on the other hand are the generation of the Vietnam War, of protest, of assassinations. They as a group will live longer than their preceding generation, but not from sheer force of will, but because the road was paved before them. Most of them anyway.

That's the generational analysis.

On the individual level, it's a whole different ball of wax.

We share the experience of our generation, but in each of our lives, we exist in completely different worlds. To some resilience is a survival instinct. To others it is something kept in reserve that they never knew they had until the absolutely horrible happens and everything in their character is tested. And for some, resilience is something they lack as some lack integrity or honesty and it is only when they need it most that their lacking becomes so glaringly apparent.

I could laugh this off and tell you that being a Red Sox fan fosters resiliency. But that would only be true if baseball were life and death.

Disease fosters resiliency. Survival is all about resiliency. Coping and finding a way to not get caught up in all the little things that tie up everyone else so that you can focus on the big thing, moving on.

I do believe I learned about resilience from my grandmother; the only member of her family to have a job during the Great Depression, the single mother and beat cop during WWII, the no-nonsense matriarch for the first half of my life.

But here is the real truth: If she were alive today, she would tell you that she had learned about resilience from me.