Clears throat…
“Oh, hey God. It’s me again—Jo. I know you’re busy with the world being on fire and all, so I’ll make this quick. If the ‘strongest soldiers’ list is voluntary, I’d like to formally decline future assignments. With gratitude.”
The Problem With Being Called ‘Resilient’
I have a complicated relationship with the word resilient.
On paper, it reads like praise. A compliment. A tidy ribbon tied around pain that didn’t ask to be inspirational.
In real life, it often lands like a consolation prize—handed out right after loss, grief, or self‑sacrifice, as if enduring quietly is the goal.
As a Black woman, resilience follows me everywhere. We are applauded for how much we can carry, how gracefully we bend without breaking, how rarely we ask for relief. Eventually, you start to wonder if resilience is just another way of saying, “I see your suffering, but I’m comfortable leaving you inside it.”
Survival Was Never Meant to Be a Lifestyle
Survival mode is not a personality trait. It’s not motivation. It’s not grit.
It is a biological stress response—ancient, automatic, and designed for emergencies.
When the nervous system detects ongoing threat—financial strain, caregiving overload, racial stress, political instability—it does what it was built to do: stay alert. Fight‑or‑flight is effective in short bursts. It becomes harmful when it turns into a permanent address.
In this state, the body trades softness for vigilance, rest for readiness, joy for endurance. You might look capable, successful, impressive even—but internally, your system is always bracing.
Why Living Feels So Uncomfortable
Living—actual living—requires presence. Presence requires safety.
Not just physical safety, but emotional, financial, and relational safety. And for many women, that safety feels conditional at best.
So stillness feels suspicious. Rest feels irresponsible. Happiness feels like something you shouldn’t get too attached to, lest it be taken away.
When your body has learned that constant alertness is what keeps disaster at bay, letting your guard down can feel reckless—like tempting fate just to enjoy your own life.
The Romanticization of Suffering
Somewhere along the way, we started romanticizing suffering.
Burnout became dedication. Exhaustion became proof of love. Self‑sacrifice became a moral flex.
And when someone finally collapses under the weight of it all, we don’t interrogate the systems that demanded so much—we praise their resilience and move on.
But chronic survival doesn’t make people stronger. It makes them tired, disconnected, and emotionally numb. Research consistently links prolonged stress to anxiety, depression, sleep disruption, immune dysfunction, and cardiovascular strain.
Resilience, when endlessly required, becomes erosion.
Living Is Not Laziness
Choosing to live is not opting out of responsibility.
It is opting out of unnecessary suffering.
Living looks like boundaries without a dissertation. Rest without justification. Joy that doesn’t require a tragedy first.
In a culture addicted to urgency, choosing presence over performance is quietly rebellious.
A Better Aspiration
These days, I don’t aspire to be resilient.
I aspire to be supported. To be rested. To feel safe enough to soften.
Survival carried many of us through seasons that demanded everything we had. It deserves acknowledgment—but not lifelong residence.
I don’t want to be admired for how much I can endure. I want to be present for my own life.
We deserve lives that feel lived—not merely survived.
