Rebuilding | Tenacious vs Resilient

For a very, very long time I took great pride in being resilient. Until one day I watched this interview with Elon Musk. He talked about being tenacious. This hit a very different neuron in my brain. Had this been a few years earlier it wouldn’t have registered very differently to me. But this was after my struggles with being able to function and just doing the bare minimum to survive.

So what exactly is the difference between these two words and why did it hit me so differently and so hard? Well, I think resilience is best described as being able to get back up after being knocked down and face down the barrel all over again. And to me that meant, as many times as needed. But when I heard that word “tenacious” in that moment, I realised, there’s no doubt in my resilience, but what I need is to be tenacious. And I know I’m trying, but I’ve just been trying to get back up. To find some land, just to stand on.

Tenacious to me means, you get knocked down but you keep moving forward, even if you’re ;stuck to the ground. To persevere. Even if we’re just crawling. And that Trying as hard as hell to get back up, you just keep pushing forward. There’s that motion in two-dimensions. Yes, it requires more force, but you’re not stopping. And sometimes, being stuck is the worst feeling.

I remember there were times I tried to push forward and only forward. There were times I tried to get up off the ground and stand up straight. But there weren’t moments where I tried to do both. I had people tell me to stop pushing and take in everything I’d made for myself. All the good stuff, and learn from it. ‘Cause there’s so much even good things can teach you. So just stop pushing.

But anyway, I don’t think pushing in just one direction is ever going to really help. In my case, I suffered with my health in return for constantly pushing forward. I ran away from the bad stuff and struggled to do even the basic things. Facing the bad stuff isn’t necessarily great either. In fact, it can make shit a lot worse. Especially, if you’re not ready to do it. And when you’re ready, you’ll KNOW it. You just gotta trust yourself then.

A lot of times, it’s probably much better to turn your back to it all and take your time. To keep trying.

But in my case, I was kinda forced to face it all. All of a sudden. No warning. I did have a one day notice period though. And thankfully, every time I fall sick something changes in my brain. And this last time, it helped me get ready.

(It’s always a Thursday.)

So what happened? I was forced to face the people responsible for the trauma. I had the busride to prep for it and contemplate. Which was a huge help.

(A quote I often think about when it comes to this stuff has always been this one by Nietzsche: “And if you gaze long enough into an abyss, the abyss will gaze back into you. Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster.”)

I had people to support me, people to lean on, to hold hands with.

And honestly, whatever happened, I’m better for it. I’m glad to see how much support I have and to see how far I’ve come. I’m glad that the encounter taught me so much, and although I’m still processing so much of it all as a whole, I’ve gotten so much more clarity.

And the clarity definitely helped. I’ve been sleeping better, better than I have in years. When I look back on it, it’s like whatever I did these past few years wasn’t even sleep. I understand things better and I’m able to function better and better. I’m learning. And I’m content with that at the moment. I’m able to be tenacious now, just a teeny tiny bit.

I remember this one thing though that someone said to me, “had this been a few a months ago, even a week ago, I’d have asked you not to do this. But you’re better now.”

I guess, I lucked out with the timing, huh?

There’s a lot of things in this world that bring us tremendous amounts of pain. But there’s also things that grab a hold of us with a similar intensity, like joy.

(Like Nassim Taleb says in a totally different but applicable context, “I’m not capable of avoiding being the fool of randomness; what I can do is confine it to where it brings some aesthetic gratification.”)

We’re all being tenacious on some level. Despite it all, and unknowingly a lot of the time.

I guess what I’m saying is… the goal is to be Tenacious now.