What is Resilience?

This, my friends, is resilience...

I've lost my blogging way the past month, actually the past year. The events that have taken place since I've last blogged have been somewhat surprising. Most notably, unless your head is in the sand, you have heard, the Chicago Cubs won the World Series, Donald Trump was elected president of the United States, and I registered for my second marathon. And you know what? The world is still revolving.

Am I happy about all of the most current events? Nope, but this is what I posted to my parents:

To mom and dad: Thank you for raising me to be a thoughtful, kind hearted, loving person. The past 24 hours have knocked the wind out of my sails, more so than being diagnosed with ms. Because of you, I will practice resilience. Just pray that the affordable Care act is not fully obliterated. But that too will work itself out... To the best parents who have always given me the best, taught me the best, modeled the best, I love you and am thankful for the moral compass you instilled in me...

I want to sit with the most important word in that post to my parents: RESILIENCE!!! One of the things us athletes know is that set backs are part of the environment. The set backs are not what define us, but rather the response to the set backs. I was having a conversation with a friend in recent days about how I can get stuck from time to time, even run away, and that is not what I want to be known for. Go back and look at my post about the hard thing rule... Running away is not allowed.

So how does our good friend google define resilience? The capacity to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness.

There are some things in life that shave away at the lining of our toughness, but that doesn't mean we should hold back. I have encountered a number of things that have thinned my toughness skin, but I refuse to give up, as I'd rather be a bit weak and ask for help, than so callused that I don't try anything new.

With that being said, I'm freaked out by this marathon I signed up for, and I am guessing that I am going to hit speed bumps through the year of training, but what I do know is that every speed bump will color my journey, and resilience will be one of my hard thing rules...

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