Resiliency: learning to bravely go on
Imagination empowers a better world
In the first paragraph of the introduction to his book Overcoming Life’s Disappointments, Rabbi Harold Kushner directly touches on why I have found his work so meaningful. He boldly states that he is writing as a “tribute to the human quality of imagination, the ability to dream and envision a better world than the one we live in.” (Kushner, 2006, p. 2)
This ability to imagine a world better than the one we currently live in is what inspired both the biblical prophets and the abolitionist movement. It is the motivation that encouraged civil rights activists to march across the bridge at Selma and the struggle for LGBTQ rights after Stonewall. On a smaller and more personal scale, it also describes the reason that many people go into helping professions like counseling, ministry, social work, teaching, or nursing.
Going bravely on when life disappoints
The problem is that things often do not work out the way we want. White supremacy endures even a century after slavery was outlawed. Students struggle with decreasing educational funding. Nurses have to operate in a broken health care system. Pastors try desperately to hold together aging and declining congregations.
On a personal level, I am still trying to come to terms with an Air Force career that did not turn out the way I expected, as well as continuing to grieve the loss of grandparents, friends, and my dad. For all these reasons, Kushner’s statement that he has written “a book for all the men and women who have begun to suspect that life will give them some of the things they yearn for but not everything, maybe not the things that the mean the most to them,” so deeply resonates with me. (Kushner, 2006, p. 2)
Rabbi Kushner does not shy away from these and other difficult realities in his book. Instead, he universalizes them by pointing to the ways Moses experienced disappointment and challenges in his life, but carried on to become one of the greatest leaders in Israel’s history. He uses Moses’ ministry to illustrate his definition of resilience, “the ability to go on bravely when those dreams don’t come true.” (Kushner, 2006, p. 2)
This ability to carry on bravely is precisely the thing I am trying to develop in my own life. It is also what I hope to foster in the lives of my future clients. Fortunately, I have personally seen this kind of resiliency in the lives of Airmen with whom I deployed, teachers who go the extra mile to reach a troubled student, as well as widows and widowers carrying on after the death of a spouse.
Today’s prayer:
My prayer today is that by implementing what I learn from Rabbi Kushner and Moses’ life I will be able to overcome my own regrets, build my own resiliency, and help equip others to bravely go on when their dreams don’t come true.
Reference: Kushner, H.S. (2006). Overcoming life’s disappointments. Alfred A. Knopf.
