A word that we feel is over-used and out of context in the modern world today is the word resilience and we would like to question the use of that word. There is even a whole industry built around resilience in the form of providing training and education services in this space.
Resilience is the correct word if used in the context of a person’s ability to bounce back i.e. recovering from shock or trauma. However, when it is used in other contexts to describe:
- our ability to cope with everyday life;
- going through a shared adversity such as a natural disaster;
- an adverse personal event (i.e. death or illness);
then it is often used out of context because these experiences encompass much more than just bouncing back.
Both on an individual basis and as a community, it is not until we experience a traumatic event or have been pricked by a challenging circumstance, that we will find out how resilient we are. The communities and blokes we deal with tell us that all the time. Consequently, when we use the word resilience, we are pigeon-holing an individual and/or community into a category that so called experts want us to fit into. For example, after a traumatic event the experts are quick to say that the community and/or individual is resilient rather than acknowledging that we all have a random capacity when operating outside our comfort zone. I suggest that a better word to use to encapsulate all the times in our lives (the good as well as the challenging) is the word capacity.
Capacity is the capability to contain and accommodate stuff in our lives. This conveys a positive vibe to us as we endeavour to maintain the right balance. We are all born with a random
capacity to deal with life’s issues. It is a bit like a rubber band, and we all know and recognise an individual’s capacity to operate fully, half, or to not appear stretched at all. No matter what we are challenged by, we all have ups and downs, and the word capacity allows us to capture our entire range of qualities be they good, bad or ugly and to then carry on and cope with what hand we are dealt with.
Our total state of physiological wellbeing is encapsulated in our individual capacity to both build stuff into our lives (something that is important for us blokes) and deal with stuff thrown at us from time to time through our life’s journey. When we combine the capacity of us as individuals with us as a collective community, we have harnessed an enormous capacity to live and thrive in regional, rural and remote Western Australia.
The biggest issue surrounding our wellbeing from the capacity perspective, is building the collective as a community when we are constantly challenged by population decline in regional, rural and remote Western Australia.
When talking about individuals/communities we should coin our comments around capacity from a strength base platform rather than resilience – this in turn will have a positive influence on our wellbeing.
By The Regional Men’s Health Initiative
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