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It's unfortunate that the article downplays resilience so much. It's entirely true that you can control your level of stress by making different choices, but f

It's unfortunate that the article downplays resilience so much. It's entirely true that you can control your level of stress by making different choices, but for a given level of stress you can definitely improve how you handle it. The best way to learn is guided practice under stressful conditions, speaking from personal experience. Organizing society to minimize harm is an understandable impulse, but it's really harmful to people's ability to cope when difficult to avoid or unavoidable stressors hit.

toomuchtodo 3y ago
Resilience is important, grit is important. I say this having been on a very dark path when I was holding my personal world up with very little support (so little we can round down). With that said, friends and resources are important and necessary. It is important to have someone you can call or text and say "I need help" and the cavalry is coming. Be that person to people in your life if you can be. I'm not able to fix society, but I'll take care of the people around me until death.
- Sai_ 3y ago
  Calvary is the hill on which Jesus was crucified. I think you wanted to use “Cavalry” in context. https://www.gingersoftware.com/english-online/spelling-book/confusing-words/calvary-cavalry https://www.gingersoftware.com/english-online/spelling-book/...
  - toomuchtodo 3y ago
    Corrected, iphone autocorrect (strange choice for the robot keyboard), thank you! Also, TIL!
    - prewett 3y ago
      > strange choice for the robot keyboard There's probably a lot more Christians talking about Calvary than there are military historians talking about an obsolete horse unit. Although it does seem like if it's uncapitalized it's likely to be military horses and not geographical locations. I bet trying to optimize autocorrect is a fun challenge!
      - aaaasmile 3y ago
        In italian "La vita è un calvario", in french "La vie est une calvaire" and in spanish "La vida es un calvario" they all mean "Life is an ordeal" or "Life is a torture". May be the context of the topic plays a role here much more that the geography location.
  - polytely 3y ago
    huh I thought it was Golgotha, but apparently Calvary is the Latin name for the place and Golgotha the Greek. funny that I've never heard of Calvary.
KittenInABox 3y ago
It's significantly easier to handle stressors when the stakes are lowered by friends and money. For example, it is so much less stressful to handle legal disputes (everything from traffic tickets to rough divorces to criminal cases) if you don't have to worry about how much your lawyer costs or who will cover your shifts at work etc. It is much less stressful to handle a cancer diagnosis when you can afford private medicine. And not to mention how super, duper, uber less stressful having an illness like diabetes is if you can afford insulin. Imagine how much more resilience a rape victim could have if they could afford therapy.
spaniard89277 3y ago
Stress is neccessary to grow and even to keep going, I'm with you in that. But I think the article is right in pointing out that there's too much focus into some inner force that makes you accomplish everything. This has been going for a while, and coupled with other factors, I don't think it's paying good dividends. I think that everyone paying attention can see the steep increase in depression and medication. It's not only the US, it's happening in Europe too. My impression is that we're removing people from their support networks, manufacturing lonely individuals, and eroding their financial float line through housing. I don't think mental thoughness or resilience can overcome this for too long, and many people is exposed to this stressors for many, many years, if not their entire life. Even Taleb, who is really tiresome talking about stress, recognizes that stress is only useful if it is more or less bounded.
- kiba 3y ago
  As I find myself often saying: Why not do both? Improve your friendship network and improve resilience.
  - emodendroket 3y ago
    Something really thrown into stark relief by becoming a parent is that “doing both” is often a lie. We only have time for so many things.
  - Arainach 3y ago
    Both cost time, which is finite and precious. Stress reduces the amount of time you have available - if all of your time not working is spent destressing, you're not much fun to be around, and that impact your ability to make and retain friends
    - fragmede 3y ago
      Find a hobby that you de-stress with others with so even though you're not fun at the beginning of the class/session, by the end of it you've screamed your frustration out and are pleasant to be around. Make friends at the end of this de-stressing event.
JumpCrisscross 3y ago
> for a given level of stress you can definitely improve how you handle it And in that toolbox should be venting to a friend or taking a break for the evening or weekend and splurging on a nice dinner or small holiday. That’s the article’s point: it’s insufficient to insist on managing it all internally.
coldtea 3y ago
Resiliience is good, but it barely pays the bills. People don't get rich with resilience, but by charisma, family support, genetic lottery, connections, friends, and opportunities. Resilience and ingenuity are cool too, but there are tons of resilient and ingenius people that never make it. And there are extremely resilient single mothers working 2 jobs and making ends meet without complaining. But that doesn't get them any success.
mschuster91 3y ago
> but it's really harmful to people's ability to cope when difficult to avoid or unavoidable stressors hit. It's one thing that we get the occasional natural disaster, financial crisis, or some war in some remote country. We can handle that, this has been the case throughout human history. But we just came out of a four-year pandemic (and hell, if you look at sewage monitoring, hospitals or half your colleagues being out sick, it still isn't over), after decades of wage stagnation, multiple crises, seriously escalating wars, exploding rents, masses of people living on the streets in the US, climate change is looming, autocrats are on the rise across the world - it's fucking enough already. Politicians aren't doing a thing to help us, no one is looking out for anybody else any more because no one has the mental/physical/time/financial resources to do so. We are in unprecedentedly bad times, and I can completely understand anybody saying "screw this, I'm out" and just going mental in one way or another. Some resort to drugs, some just break down completely, some off themselves, some off others - everyone reacts different in response to too much stress.
nsagent 3y ago
The article does not downplay resilience. It merely says that resilience has both internal and external components. That is, you can only get so far while just focusing on your personal ability to overcome adversity, but you'll do even better if you combine that with external support. To be honest, I'm not sure how that can be misconstrued on Hacker News, when people frequently focus on the power of groups working together (whether that's open source, corporations, or other organizations). It's clear that some of the most lauded organizations are ones that often support their members, especially in times of hardship. This comes from someone who is very much a proponent of perseverance. My first tattoo enshrines this Japanese proverb on my forearm where I can always see it: 七転び八起き Fall seven times, stand up eight
- lioeters 3y ago
  The proverb is associated with a figure called Daruma, with a round physique that always gets up no matter how it's knocked down. It's cute and symbolic, popular in Japanese culture. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daruma_doll https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daruma_doll
Paul-Craft 3y ago
I don't see how it's downplaying anything, except in comparison to money and friends. Given that it's fairly obvious that almost all problems can be solved or seriously mitigated by money and friends, I think it's a fair conclusion to say that money and friends are strictly superior to (internal) resilience. I also think the example and conclusion they gave was perfect: little problems are much bigger when you don't have the tools available to effectively solve them, and those tools are money and friends, which are sources of external resilience. They're not saying internal resilience is bad; they're simply saying that not having to get to the point of needing to be internally resilient is strictly better. These all seem like fair statements that sound like they come from the department of "no shit, Sherlock," to me.
QuantumGood 3y ago
When I was younger, there were those who were commonly late or no shows, and their futures rarely went in a good direction. For myself I found I had to acquire quite a bit of resilience to reach average reliability. The youngest generations now see things like a non-fixed schedule as a lifestyle perk—and they're right—but I worry about how they can acquire resilience from this and other areas.
eternityforest 3y ago
I'm sure there are a lot of people out there suffering from lack of resilience, especially those who's goals are focused on inherently hard things... But there are so many graduates of the school of hard knocks giving straight up dangerous advice and people might want to be more careful.

toomuchtodo 3y ago

Resilience is important, grit is important. I say this having been on a very dark path when I was holding my personal world up with very little support (so little we can round down). With that said, friends and resources are important and necessary. It is important to have someone you can call or text and say "I need help" and the cavalry is coming. Be that person to people in your life if you can be. I'm not able to fix society, but I'll take care of the people around me until death.

Sai_ 3y ago
Calvary is the hill on which Jesus was crucified. I think you wanted to use “Cavalry” in context. https://www.gingersoftware.com/english-online/spelling-book/confusing-words/calvary-cavalry https://www.gingersoftware.com/english-online/spelling-book/...
- toomuchtodo 3y ago
  Corrected, iphone autocorrect (strange choice for the robot keyboard), thank you! Also, TIL!
  - prewett 3y ago
    > strange choice for the robot keyboard There's probably a lot more Christians talking about Calvary than there are military historians talking about an obsolete horse unit. Although it does seem like if it's uncapitalized it's likely to be military horses and not geographical locations. I bet trying to optimize autocorrect is a fun challenge!
    - aaaasmile 3y ago
      In italian "La vita è un calvario", in french "La vie est une calvaire" and in spanish "La vida es un calvario" they all mean "Life is an ordeal" or "Life is a torture". May be the context of the topic plays a role here much more that the geography location.
- polytely 3y ago
  huh I thought it was Golgotha, but apparently Calvary is the Latin name for the place and Golgotha the Greek. funny that I've never heard of Calvary.

KittenInABox 3y ago

It's significantly easier to handle stressors when the stakes are lowered by friends and money. For example, it is so much less stressful to handle legal disputes (everything from traffic tickets to rough divorces to criminal cases) if you don't have to worry about how much your lawyer costs or who will cover your shifts at work etc. It is much less stressful to handle a cancer diagnosis when you can afford private medicine. And not to mention how super, duper, uber less stressful having an illness like diabetes is if you can afford insulin. Imagine how much more resilience a rape victim could have if they could afford therapy.

spaniard89277 3y ago

Stress is neccessary to grow and even to keep going, I'm with you in that. But I think the article is right in pointing out that there's too much focus into some inner force that makes you accomplish everything. This has been going for a while, and coupled with other factors, I don't think it's paying good dividends. I think that everyone paying attention can see the steep increase in depression and medication. It's not only the US, it's happening in Europe too. My impression is that we're removing people from their support networks, manufacturing lonely individuals, and eroding their financial float line through housing. I don't think mental thoughness or resilience can overcome this for too long, and many people is exposed to this stressors for many, many years, if not their entire life. Even Taleb, who is really tiresome talking about stress, recognizes that stress is only useful if it is more or less bounded.

kiba 3y ago
As I find myself often saying: Why not do both? Improve your friendship network and improve resilience.
- emodendroket 3y ago
  Something really thrown into stark relief by becoming a parent is that “doing both” is often a lie. We only have time for so many things.
- Arainach 3y ago
  Both cost time, which is finite and precious. Stress reduces the amount of time you have available - if all of your time not working is spent destressing, you're not much fun to be around, and that impact your ability to make and retain friends
  - fragmede 3y ago
    Find a hobby that you de-stress with others with so even though you're not fun at the beginning of the class/session, by the end of it you've screamed your frustration out and are pleasant to be around. Make friends at the end of this de-stressing event.

JumpCrisscross 3y ago

> for a given level of stress you can definitely improve how you handle it And in that toolbox should be venting to a friend or taking a break for the evening or weekend and splurging on a nice dinner or small holiday. That’s the article’s point: it’s insufficient to insist on managing it all internally.

coldtea 3y ago

Resiliience is good, but it barely pays the bills. People don't get rich with resilience, but by charisma, family support, genetic lottery, connections, friends, and opportunities. Resilience and ingenuity are cool too, but there are tons of resilient and ingenius people that never make it. And there are extremely resilient single mothers working 2 jobs and making ends meet without complaining. But that doesn't get them any success.

mschuster91 3y ago

> but it's really harmful to people's ability to cope when difficult to avoid or unavoidable stressors hit. It's one thing that we get the occasional natural disaster, financial crisis, or some war in some remote country. We can handle that, this has been the case throughout human history. But we just came out of a four-year pandemic (and hell, if you look at sewage monitoring, hospitals or half your colleagues being out sick, it still isn't over), after decades of wage stagnation, multiple crises, seriously escalating wars, exploding rents, masses of people living on the streets in the US, climate change is looming, autocrats are on the rise across the world - it's fucking enough already. Politicians aren't doing a thing to help us, no one is looking out for anybody else any more because no one has the mental/physical/time/financial resources to do so. We are in unprecedentedly bad times, and I can completely understand anybody saying "screw this, I'm out" and just going mental in one way or another. Some resort to drugs, some just break down completely, some off themselves, some off others - everyone reacts different in response to too much stress.

nsagent 3y ago

The article does not downplay resilience. It merely says that resilience has both internal and external components. That is, you can only get so far while just focusing on your personal ability to overcome adversity, but you'll do even better if you combine that with external support. To be honest, I'm not sure how that can be misconstrued on Hacker News, when people frequently focus on the power of groups working together (whether that's open source, corporations, or other organizations). It's clear that some of the most lauded organizations are ones that often support their members, especially in times of hardship. This comes from someone who is very much a proponent of perseverance. My first tattoo enshrines this Japanese proverb on my forearm where I can always see it: 七転び八起き Fall seven times, stand up eight

lioeters 3y ago
The proverb is associated with a figure called Daruma, with a round physique that always gets up no matter how it's knocked down. It's cute and symbolic, popular in Japanese culture. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daruma_doll https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Daruma_doll

Paul-Craft 3y ago

I don't see how it's downplaying anything, except in comparison to money and friends. Given that it's fairly obvious that almost all problems can be solved or seriously mitigated by money and friends, I think it's a fair conclusion to say that money and friends are strictly superior to (internal) resilience. I also think the example and conclusion they gave was perfect: little problems are much bigger when you don't have the tools available to effectively solve them, and those tools are money and friends, which are sources of external resilience. They're not saying internal resilience is bad; they're simply saying that not having to get to the point of needing to be internally resilient is strictly better. These all seem like fair statements that sound like they come from the department of "no shit, Sherlock," to me.

QuantumGood 3y ago

When I was younger, there were those who were commonly late or no shows, and their futures rarely went in a good direction. For myself I found I had to acquire quite a bit of resilience to reach average reliability. The youngest generations now see things like a non-fixed schedule as a lifestyle perk—and they're right—but I worry about how they can acquire resilience from this and other areas.

eternityforest 3y ago

I'm sure there are a lot of people out there suffering from lack of resilience, especially those who's goals are focused on inherently hard things... But there are so many graduates of the school of hard knocks giving straight up dangerous advice and people might want to be more careful.