“The oak fought the wind and was broken, the willow bent when it must and survived.”
R. Jordan
What’s your word of the day?
Mine is all about resilire. It’s really been my word for the past twelve months…Yes, my word of the year.
Resilient versus Resile
According to Merriam-Webster “Resilient” focuses on the ability to “bounce back” from damage, whereas “resile” generally applies to someone or something that withdraws from an agreement or “jumps back” from a stated position.
Do you feel that you are bouncing back? How about withdrawing from situations that you took for granted? Reality check! You and I have been jumping back and forth between being resilient and resile? How are these two words connected?
They are united by the same origin: the Latin verb resilire. Typically, you would think that two words with a common origin should share the same meaning. You would find them in different word classes or parts of speech depending on the part they play in a sentence such as an adjective or an adverb.
While they seem contradictory, the two words explain what each one of us has been going through. You see, you are resilient yet resile!
Resilient
Resilient is an adjective. The pandemic, with every unique scenario it presented, offered you resilience as the only way to survive. The unprecedented challenges meant that perhaps you failed, you felt bad and was hurt immensely, yet you chose to move forward. The “new normal” forced you to get up and somehow you bounced back. And no matter what, you continue to manage to try one more time. YOU are resilient!
“Like tiny seeds with potent power to push through tough ground and become mighty trees, we hold innate reserves of unimaginable strength. We are resilient.”
C. DeVrye,
Resile
Resile is a verb. How do you do this bouncing back? You do it by “jumping back” from a stated path to your ambitions. You do it by picking up the pieces and saying let me look at the situation from a different angle. You do it by creatively moving forward while keeping your eyes on your goals. What you end up with is a reframed mindset that leads to your continuous success. While you may resile from a planned path, YOU do not resile from your ambition to succeed!
“Success needs a special attitude in a person – not to resile from one’s own ambition”
Dr. S. K. Kasturi
Good News
The good news is that I have survived by taking things one day at a time and never losing sight of my goals. Forward is forward…it doesn’t matter how slow I go 💪 Between being resilient and resile, YOU have survived as well.
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Hoda's Musings 