Resilience Research Paper

Resilience, when asked to define and explain the act of being resilient, can be a hard thing to describe. It is something everyone must be at one point in their lives, and what some people must be every day. There are different levels to it, depending on what the person is going through at the time. However, resilience is commonly described as just staying strong in a tough situation or time in a person’s life. When something goes wrong, or something bad happens, the person affected doesn’t let it break them. They stand strong against whatever is being thrown at them, but they bend when they need to. Someone who is resilient is flexible, making sure they don’t crack under pressure. As Robert Jordan said in The Fires of Heaven, “The oak fought the wind and was broken, the willow bent when it must and survived.”

Resilience is about how an individual deals, resists, recovers and learns from adversity’s in life. If a child is resilient they are less likely to be damaged as a result of negative experiences and are more likely to learn from and move on. In order for a child to be resilient they need to believe in themselves and have others they can rely on in their lives.

According to the author McCubbin in Karen Seccombe’s article “‘Beating the Odds’ Versus ‘Changing the Odds’: Poverty, Resilience, and Family Policy” he says that “It can be defined as the capacity to rebound from adversity, misfortune, trauma, or other transitional crises strengthened and more resourceful” (385). McCubbins point is that resiliency is to bounce back from any “crises” or “misfortune” in a person’s life. Being resilient is to keep moving forward from any bad events. For example some factor work with a person’s resiliency such as a good parental bond, good community, and a role model.

Resilience is about being independent, standing on your own two feet or taking back the power.

For some people the strong word resilience can impact one’s life in a significant way. Overall, resiliency is having the ability to still enjoy and continue your life with positive, good times, regardless of a hard past or bad experience. It can be shown in various ways throughout a text, including the setting, the plot, and characterization. This is how the texts, The Other Wes Moore, The Art of Resilience, and The Third and Final Continent share their common theme. This theme the three texts convey is that resiliency is vital for a positive as well as successful life.

Saying that, no one person thinks the same, it’s what makes us all unique. Though, I would be pleased to say these tie together to make my definition make sense. The first part of my definition, resilience is the capability of a person to bounce back from a hard time. I fixated on this to explain my life experience in having to be resilient with my family members to get to where we are now. The second parts, to get back on their feet after stumbling, was expressed by Jeannette Walls. Again and again, we seem to notice a pattern in the book where the Walls family move to somewhere new and build a whole life there. They don’t let their past stop them and through the hard times, they still manage to build something new for themselves. The last part, to understand that there is no end and you can always become better, would be from Elizabeth Edwards for support. From her book on resilience, the quote used states that if you are resilient, you’d be able to judge what you can do from there. This connects to my definition because it explains that resilience helps you deal and even become better when you

Resilience is the ability to overcome struggles. In the book Night, Elie Wiesel is put into a concentration camp during the Holocaust. During his time there, Elie would not have been able to be so resilient without his father by his side. In Boys in The Boat, Joe Rantz would also have struggled to overcome his struggles without his dad. However, without Joe’s father treating him so badly throughout his childhood Joe might not have been so motivated to prove to his father that he was strong. In both books, Joe and Elie both demonstrate resilience by using their family to overcome their struggles.

Resilience is the power or the ability to return to the original form. “Resilience is born by grounding yourself in your own loveliness, hitting notes you thought were way out of your range” (94). Father Gregory Boyle says this because he knows that resilience is needed in order to change. Resilience is important because we can become better people by doing things, we thought we couldn’t do. In the book, Tattoos on the Heart, The Power of Boundless Compassion, Boyle claims resilience is essential in our lives because it is the key to do better.

There are varieties of definitions in regards with resilience based on different perspectives (Arrington et al., 2000). For instance, from a developmental perspective, resilience can be defined as positive and successful outcomes despite challenging situations (Masten, 2007; Windle, 2010). Resilience can also be defined as recovery to normal functioning from adversity or coping well under currently risk conditions (Masten, 2007; Windle, 2010). However, not every language has the word “resilience”. For example, a phrase, “the ability to cope with adversity” (Ungar et al.,

Resilience is the ability to overcome hard situations, learn from mistakes, and use the past to get over future hardships. Jeanette Walls shows resilience in many ways. Although her family is not too successful and live a much more

Able to recover quickly from misfortune; able to return to original form after being bent, compressed, or stretched out of shape. A human ability to recover quickly from disruptive change, or misfortune without being overwhelmed or acting in dysfunctional or harmful ways. As in "Our team showed great resilience," or "Our team had good resiliency." (n.d.)

Resilience is a term that is often applied to those who have faced hardship and viewed the experience in a positive light as an opportunity to grow and change for the better (Wagnild & Collins, 2009). The definition however seems to vary from place to place. Ungar et al. (2008) stated “definitions of resilience are ambiguous when viewed across cultures" (p.174) which is why the understanding of resilience may be difficult to capture (as cited in Windle, Bennett & Noyes, 2011). Although the literature agrees on several common themes about resilience there are many varying opinions on how to define the concept or the attributing factors. Earvolino-Ramirez (2007) and

I believe my family fits the definition of resilience. Resilience could be defined as the capacity to rebound from adversity. To become stronger and more resourceful. It’s important not to equate resilience with competent functioning. When thinking about resilience, it’s more than just getting through or coping with a particular or multiple challenging situation. Resilience involves positive transformation and growth that enables one to deal effectively with challenges. We can be compared to a rubber band. Something might happen that knocks us back for a short period of time, but, if we are resilient, we stretch ourselves and spring forward.

When I heard a term called resilience, I have no idea about it and think that it is not related to me. After I had a lecture with a topic resilience. I realize it is necessary and I need to face many adversity in my life. Also, I remember something happened in my past are shown my resilience level. I would like to share the story in my life to show the factors which are indicated in the last part can show resilience level.

First of all, I would like to define what resilience is. Major scholars believe it is the process to recover from trauma, or the ability to respond to adversity. According to Sergeant and Laws-Chapman (2012), resilience refers to “the ability to adapt to adverse conditions while maintaining a sense of purpose, balance, and positive mental and