I remember working with a group of people on a project which was not going well.  One of my directs looked at me and said “Happiness is a low base”. I started laughing because I understood what she meant.

Yes, when things are bad there’s usually only one direction to go…and that’s up. It can only get better. But it takes a certain kind of person who can make it better because the reality is that it could just stay like that. How many of us have seen projects which have stayed mired in the absence of decision making, transparency, and the inability to just call it like it is?

I was watching an Instagram where this person was talking about the Navy Seal program. He was asked “who makes it?”. He said (I’m paraphrasing) “It’s not the ex-athletes.  It’s not the muscle bound guys with tattoos. It’s the skinny guy who’s shivering because he’s afraid and exhausted. But somehow he finds it in himself to tap the energy needed to keep on going.”

I think resiliency tends to be an overlooked strength. We want things to be easy for the people we love…we don’t want them to struggle. We don’t want them to get hurt. We want to make their lives perfect. But the fact is that there is a lot we don’t control in life….illness, bureaucracy, other people. If we don’t let the people we love build resiliency….if they expect everything to be handed to them without any reciprocity…without any work, we only create individuals who won’t be strong enough to deal with the challenge when it does come. They will rely on others to help them…and these others might not be good people. They won’t be independent. They won’t know what they can really do because they’ve never had to do it before.

It’s easy to get drawn in when you like to solve problems. But are we really helping?