By: Linda Sapadin
Jill is now 23 years old, in law school and feeling pretty miserable. When her parents asked her what's wrong, she went into a long litany of complaints. "I don't know if I want to continue in law school. I have no idea about what it really takes to be great in this field. And I don't want to be just a run-of-the mill lawyer. I don't know what I will do after law school. And I'm not sure how I'll handle the crazy hours that law firms expect you to work. I'm interning over the summer in a law office and I don't like it. There's a lot of boring research. To make matters worse, some of the lawyers are coarse and crude. Yesterday, I made a small mistake and this lawyer lambasted me. I've never been so humiliated in my whole life."
Will Jill be able to get past this low point in her life? Probably. Yet breezing through life in her early years actually might make it more difficult for her now. Why is that?
Because outside of the artificial school situation, life is filled with defeats, setbacks and failure---even for straight A students. If there is one essential skill for young people to develop at the start of their career, it is resilience.
What is resilience and why is it so important? Resilience is the ability to bounce back quickly. Resilience is the ability to experience failure that knocks you down, but doesn't keep you down. Resilience is going through stunning defeat but recovering expeditiously.
Young people who have been successful in their early years generally expect that life will go well for them. They believe that only on rare occasion, if at all, will life clobber them with a humiliating defeat, a frustrating obstacle, an unexpected curve ball. However, most people's experience is far different. A well lived life is not a life free from stress and obstacles. Rather, it is a life in which one can cope with frustration, helplessness, loss, and defeat without giving up one's goal or losing one's optimism.
Hence, my advice to Jill, or to any young person who doesn't have the foggiest idea about what to do in life or who feels uncertain or beat almost from the onset, is to persevere. No matter how difficult the task seems, if it will bring you valuable experience or teaches you something worthwhile, hang in there, tough it out, stay the course, and keep plugging away. Success at everything important in life ---work, marriage, parenthood, personal goals-- requires resilience in the face of setbacks, uncertainty and discouragement.
Linda Sapadin, Ph.D. is a psychologist in private practice who works with individuals, families and couples. Copyright 2003
