What Does It Really Mean to Be Resilient?
Tracing the journey from a scientific concept to a cultural cliché—and what gets lost along the way.
Resilience has become one of those buzzwords that has lost its meaning. Resilience has become a buzzword that's lost its meaning.
Politicians use it to create myths about their people being exceptionally resilient, either to lift morale or to justify cutting budgets. Meanwhile, CEOs invoke it to explain why remaining employees should stay during layoffs intended to increase shareholder value.
What does science have to say about resilience?
Originally, the concept of resilience had a scientific basis. In the 1960s, American scientist Norham Garmezy studied children who grew up in challenging environments marked by poverty and stress. Having experienced hardship as a Jewish emigrant with his parents from the USSR to New York, he became curious about why some children succeeded in life despite such difficulties.
He coined the term “resilience” to describe the ability to overcome adversity and recover from setbacks.
This concept was later adopted in psychology and extended to fields such as sociology, education, and ecology, eventually giving rise to related terms like post-traumatic growth. Even scientists who study biological transmission of traumatic events, bring up resilience.
Resilience remains a challenging phenomenon to study, as researchers note. It takes time to determine whether someone has truly overcome adversity, and it cannot be easily measured. It takes a while, it costs money. But sometimes those studies happen.
Over 30 years of studying resilience
In 1989, developmental psychologist Emma Werner published the results of a unique 32‑year study. She observed a group of 690 children living on the island of Kauai, Hawaii. The study began before their birth and continued into adulthood, tracking the impact of various stressors on their lives—from the prenatal period through to their third decade.
Some of them did better than others. Why? Werner observed that they possessed an internal locus of control—a belief that they determine their own fate rather than being governed by circumstances. These children felt independent and autonomous, making the most of the resources available to them.
Do you have to be born resilient?
The good news is that Werner also noted that resilience changes over time.
Even resilient children experience periods when they struggle due to the accumulation of multiple stressors, demonstrating that everyone has a breaking point.
At the same time, those who initially did not show resilience were able to acquire these skills later in life by adapting to new circumstances.
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On a personal note
If resilience isn’t set in stone, is giving up a sign of defeat? Is hitting rock bottom part of building resilience? Is it really just about bouncing back?
It took me a while to return to writing the chapter of my book that focuses on resilience after a perfect storm hit my personal life—imagine illness, job loss, and the death of someone close to you, all delivered in a single envelope on the same day.
In that state, reading about resilience, adaptability, and other people’s miraculous achievements felt unbearable. It just made me angry. Sure, dear positive psychologists, resilience is important—but aren’t you sugar-coating it? Aren’t you playing into the narrative of modern-day individualism? As a ‘neoliberal subject’ in a capitalist society, you're expected to stay productive no matter what. If you can't, it's your fault. So, go ahead and work on your resilience skills.
What if you just give up?
I wanted to write my book, but I paused it for several months.
Some people I interviewed had to give up on their dreams due to circumstances beyond their control.
Take Eugene, for example. He dreamed of launching a flying car in Voronezh, a large city in southern Russia. His vision seemed crazy to many, but deeply inspiring to others. After he shared his project publicly, he received messages of support and offers to help from all over the country.
He invested 10 million rubles of his own money, but then the unimaginable happened - the war broke out, shattering everything for millions. As the military conflict ravaged this part of the world, European investors pulled out their funding. Eugene had no choice but to put everything on hold.
Yet, he still keeps up with news on flying cars, still hoping to try again someday, somewhere.
I returned to writing the chapter on resilience, and when my classmates in the Faber Academy creative nonfiction course shared how much it resonated with them, I almost broke into tears.
What does resilience mean to you personally? What keeps you going when things get tough? I'd love to hear your stories!
Links
📄 Risk and resilience in development and psychopathology: The legacy of Norman Garmezy — a 2012 study.
📄 The children of Kauai: Resiliency and recovery in adolescence and adulthood — a study by Emmy E. Werner Ph.D.
📙 Resilience: The Science of Mastering Life's Greatest Challenges — a book by Dennis S. Charney and Steven M. Southwick.
We’re not always built to bounce back. Sometimes we stay broken. And that's still human.
What you wrote really resonated with me.
The concept of environment versus inner spark is something I've been reflecting on for a while.
In fact, I’m writing a series of five texts exploring this.
What makes us monsters, the power of context, the inner shadow, the quiet compass that guides us when no one’s watching.
I truly enjoyed your narrative style.
Honestly, I’m subscribing out of conviction; your originality hit me deeply.
Thank you!
Nice post. I think resilience is only half of success. Place and society are the second half. Resilient Jewish kids succeeded only after moving from the USSR to the USA. How many resilient Soviet citizens became alcoholics? I think a lot of them.