When the Going get Tough, the Tough Get Going

When the Going get Tough, the Tough Get Going

Life is rife with contradiction and trauma. Let’s explore a contradiction: we say and do things to help people so that they be more in control of their lives and feel better about themselves, but we do it in such a way that we actually weaken them internally. Basically, we make things easier so they are less resilient and when life gets tough they collapse. Yes, they are “helped” to pass a course at school, or “helped” to pass a drivers test, yes they are “helped” if something unfair happens to them. Good intentions. But what about helping them to e stronger inside their hearts and souls? For me what we do today is like giving fish to a starving man. It is good for today. But what about tomorrow? We need not only to give people  a fishing rod instead of a fish, but also train them on how to fish! What if our current form of help instead traumatizes people because when eventually we have to stop giving them a fish they have no fishing rod and even if they had one don’t know how to use it?

Let’s first examine trauma and a subtle aspect of trauma that most of us don’t know. Years ago I was helping my wife, a mental health nurse, as she researched for a paper on climate change induced trauma. At that time, around 5 years ago, we came across a surprising statistic. Canada was one of the safest countries in the world, in terms of severity of traumatic events per capita, but it scored the HIGHEST in terms of trauma experienced by its citizens. How is that possible? It turns out that when people in countries where there is a lot of danger they are prepared for it, expect it and most importantly have social networks to support and heal them after the traumatic event. You see, it turns out that trauma is NOT the event, it is our RESPONSE to the event! Of course, everybody in the field of mental health knows that, but it was new to me. That paper then explained that Canadians are not ready for unfairness, injustice, pain and suffering – which, sadly, are a part of life which is never going away, and, just as important, are alone when they suffer. The old social networks that enabled community and family [NOT government!] to succor people when they needed is very, very weak. So, what’s the take away? Trauma is not the event, it is our response. We choose that response. If we are prepared and we have support we have a much better chance of having a healing response.

That brings us to our next point: our society seems on intent on promoting a ‘victim mentality’. Of course there are real injustices that happen which need addressing, but the reality is that there is another half to any solution – our part. We do not seem to encourage and help people look into their own souls to find out what they can do to improve themselves. What is odd about this modern attitude is that people are being encourage to simultaneously over estimating their abilities. They are taught unrealistic expectations. The messaging is “ You deserve….”. And then they fail. Then they feel no self worth. Then, in an act of self preservation, they need to find someone to blame – all because we have not emphasized that it is not what life does to us, but it is our response [with support of course!] that decides whether we are successful and happy. The fact is there is no avoiding “the dark night of the soul”.

Here is a real life, but not dramatic, example of what I mean. When my wife moved to Pennsylvania in the 80’s we had a old school landlord from Atlanta who had grown up in a world where women were never involved in business. After we signed the rental contract I shook his hand and my wife extended her had to shake on the deal as well. He did not acknowledge her extended hand and abruptly turned away. It seemed a like a strong rebuff and seemed very insulting to us at the time. However, my wife as a future mental health care nurse, simply pretended that her extended hand was there to remove some hair from her face and said something innocuous about the beautiful day. We later became best friends with our landlord and his wife. Carmen became a trusted friend to him and he thought the world of her. He took us out to fancy restaurants [our incomes were minimal] and introduced us to his friends who were part of the local fox hunt. Basically, my wife did not choose to react to what could have traumatized another [“he’s a sexist pig!”]. She chose not to be a victim. She chose not to blame. And only then did she get what she wanted – a healthy friendship with our landlord.

Here is yet another aspect to trauma and how it is our response which is key.

“Losing a parent is one of the most devastating things that can happen to a child. The world goes topsy-turvy. The psychologist Felix Brown reports that prisoners are two to three times more likely to have lost a parent in childhood than the population as a whole. But for some people, Malcolm Gladwell points out in his new book, the death of a mother or father is a spur, a propellant that sends them catapulting into life. Because they are on their own, they are forced to persist, to invent, to chart their own way — into a curious category Gladwell dubs “eminent orphans.”  There are, he reports, a lot of them. Historian Lucille Iremonger discovered that 67 percent of British prime ministers from the start of the 19th century to the start of World War II lost a parent before the age of 16. 33% of US Presidents lost a father when they were a child. This is a touchy subject. Nobody wants to say that catastrophe is a career booster; common sense says the opposite, that children with intact families get more love, protection and support, which ought to be an advantage later on. But it’s also true that kids with missing parents need extra muscles, grit and self reliance — also ingredients for success. The surprise here is the proportion of highly successful people who lost a parent early. Their achievements, of course, may have little or nothing to do with how many parents they had at home, but looking through Gladwell’s footnotes, it is puzzling to see so many of them at the top of their professions. This suggests, ever so slightly, that pain trumps love at the start of the race. That’s a notion that makes me wince.” https://www.npr.org/sections/krulwich/2013/10/15/234737083/successful-children-who-lost-a-parent-why-are-there-so-many-of-them

So, while the famous quote above by Joseph P. Kennedy is often misused, but it is also true. It is an attitude that I see we are losing, especially among our youth. However, given that life is messy and complicated and rife with contradictions we will also explore the limits to this attitude; for those of us who are older know that living within our limits, accepting our strength AND our weaknesses, is the trick to both living the good life and also to solving problems in life such as the environmental catastrophe unfolding before us.

Adversity is one thing that we will face at one point or the other. Everybody has their up moments in life. It’s easy to be successful and feel good about yourself then. However it is during the downs of life that you find out who you really are. Sadly most people are broken and lose their sense of self worth in the most difficult moments. Some people even gave up before starting when faced with what seems an insurmountable challenge. However, others thrive and improve themselves and are forged in the crucible of unreasonable pain and difficulty into better selves. Why is that? Why do traumatic events destroy most people but make others better, stronger, smarter, and sometimes even wiser and more compassionate?

We all know that “Tough times do not last long, but tough people do”. We all know that the important thing is to remember that every difficulty or obstacle is temporary. It may take a while and may not end the way we expected, but will definitely come to an end. We must harbour positive thoughts and surround ourselves with positive people. Negativity breeds negative emotions and actions. We all know this.  But our society usually responds to “helping” people by making trying things easier for them. By reducing standards in education. By trying to make gasoline [temporarily] cheaper instead of finding an alternative. By bringing in skilled immigrants instead of training them ourselves. By subsidizing food and housing for the poor instead of just paying them enough so they can stand on their own two feet. By demonizing people we disagree with instead of recognizing that none of us has a handle on the whole truth but rather each has a tiny slice of it. By saying “somebody” or “the government” should really do something about the climate apocalypse instead of changing our lifestyle in any significant way. Rather than insulate houses we build new power plants. By blaming corporations or billionaires for the wealth inequality that risks tearing apart our civil society. Most of us, without admitting to it, choose the easy way out of any tricky situation. If a “white” lie will cover up a mistake we made, we lie. Here is an example of what we must encourage people to be like – this is a story of an Olympic champion.

Showing perseverance at its finest, the American never relented in chasing her Winter Olympic dream, and her fifth Games finally delivered the gold medal she once threw away. Cast your mind back to Turin in 2006. A young Jacobellis, on her first Olympic outing, was seconds clear of the rest of the field in what was the first snowboard cross final on this stage. In a split-second decision she has no doubt long rued, she chose to showboat with the finish line in her sight. Her youthful confidence backfired, and she hit the deck as she watched Switzerland’s Tanja Frieden steam past her for the golden moment she’d had within her grasp. Now, 16 years on, and at the age of 36, that gold is finally hers – victory in the Beijing final ensured the ghost was exorcised at long last. I definitely have put 2006 in the past and have done a lot of soul searching to realise that that moment doesn’t define me as an athlete, as an individual,” said Jacobellis.

So clearly we must help people recognize that they must do the soul searching needed to face the harshness of life that cannot be avoided. We need to help them know that blame will not help them. We need them to know that although we must fight injustice, we also need to take responsibility for the choices we make and nothing worthwhile in life happens without pain. Well, OK, pain can be avoided temporarily – but until you then meet a challenge that is even worse. You may stop a young person living on the edge from getting covid by a lockdown – but then they are so lonely and depressed that they go back to drugs and die of an opioid overdose.  Yes, we all need help from friends and coaches and teachers and neighbours – but not to avoid the tough events of life, not to make everything “so safe” that our youth have no inner strength to face life events when they are older and on their own. What do we do? Helicopter parenting has become the norm. We always keep our kids “safe”. So safe, that they have no opportunities to build resiliency. When I was a kid I left in the morning to spend all day playing with my friends and came back for dinner. The whole time my parents had no idea where I was or what I was doing. We thrived. Here’s another story about a former student of mine.

This student I taught in High School had straight As. He went to McGill for Engineering and studied hard – or so he thought. Now in those days – it was the late 80s when I started teaching there was no “extra time” if you had an issue like dyslexia, if you were sick on the exam day you went anyway. So when the midterm exams came he thought he was ready. He left the exam halls feeling pretty confident that he had passed all the exams. But he didn’t. He did not pass one midterm. He failed every single one. Clearly, he could have given up. But he didn’t. He took a long walk in a snowstorm up Mont Royal and decided to work much, much harder. That meant studying all night for several days a week. That means studying till midnight the other days. That meant getting copies of old exams in the library and working in the quietest spot in the library and solving problems from the last 10 years of exams. Did it work? Of course! He actually earned an “A” in his toughest course – Physics. After he told me the story I asked him where he got the idea and also ability to focus and work so hard. He said from doing sports. He had been a world class long distance runner and the pain he had endured there taught him that pain is temporary, but winning is permanent. He also said he could have done nothing without a good coach – none of us can do it alone. Basically he was telling me, no pain, no gain & have a great coach!

Now let’s make these nice ideas realistic. There are always limits to what we can do. Pigs cannot fly – no matter how hard they try. You cannot do whatever you want – there are limits. Setting unrealistic expectations is only setting yourself up for failure. Trying to be super Mom and working a full time job and raising a bunch of kids and helping out at the School and …. Well, that is just a recipe for burn out. Our society somehow sends contradictory messaging: you can be and do anything, but does not give us the training and attitude to make our objectives achievable and realistic. A friend of mine is a family counselor and who does she often help? Husbands and wives who “have it all”. They “do it all”. But their marriage is falling apart. They are miserable at work. They have no sex life. They have the external trapping of success – big house, nice cars, ski vacations in BC, cute kids… but they are in a death spiral. They need to do less, be more content, look inside and not blame their husband/wife for their unhappiness.

Here is an example of what I mean of a choice that is realistic. If you are hoping that I will finally talk about the environment you are in luck. It turns out, like all good ideas, the thoughts above are universally applicable. So what works in sports or families or for students also works for choosing ways to solve our environmental disaster.

 

These 12-mile-deep holes could convert power plants from fossil fuel to geothermal

Using a new technology that employs energy waves to melt rock, the wells can do deeper than standard geothermal, potentially making the renewable energy work anywhere on earth. Quaise Energy, a startup that just raised a $40 million Series A funding round led by Safar Partners, uses “millimeter wave” drilling systems to go as far as 12 miles underground—that’s 3 to 5 times deeper than typical oil and gas drilling—reaching a layer of rock which is more than 700 degrees Fahrenheit. The heat can be used as a constant power source essentially anywhere on the planet. it plans to begin deploying the technology at existing fossil fuel power plants. At most power plants, “you burn a fossil fuel to heat water up, make it into steam, and use the steam to make electricity with a turbine,” he says. “Geothermal replaces the burning of the fossil fuels—the steam comes from the ground.” By going to existing power plants and drilling holes there, the company can avoid rebuilding other infrastructure. “Imagine the savings in new infrastructure capital to be able to decarbonize the majority of the electric production assets in the world.”  https://www.fastcompany.com/90717968/these-12-mile-deep-holes-could-convert-power-plants-from-fossil-fuel-to-geothermal

So what you can you? Choose to do what is difficult, but be realistic. Get support and get advice – but choose the hard path and avoid the easy way out. Face your fears. If you’re older, help somebody younger develop the inner courage to face challenges and not see them as obstacles, but opportunities for personal growth. Remember, you don’t get stronger by wishing it – you need to lift some weight and yes, it hurts! But the feeling of satisfaction you get from accomplishing a difficult task easily outweighs any pain. So, don’t give up, just be inspired and inspiring to others and keep going. This something that will be relevant to every generation – it will never change. When the going gets tough, the tough get going, that’s life. But never forget that some things you cannot do. You will not be able to avoid all traumatic events, but you are in charge of your response to trauma that can avoid permanent scarring of your psyche. Much of life you must just accept. Sometimes you just have to bend to the winds around you – or be snapped in half like a tree in the hurricane of life.

A tree that bends to the wind does not break – if it has strong and deep roots.