Resilience

My two goals in raising my children were to develop resilience and empathy.  I figured the brains would take care of themselves, and were certainly no goal of intrinsic importance.  I am happy to report success in all areas, but did want to share what I just realized as to how to measure this.

Laughter.  If you can laugh at yourself sincerely, you are not self important, and if you are not self important you naturally have room for the emotional lives of others.  You can value them, share them, care about them.

And if you can laugh at pain, you are tough.  One of my favorite scenes in any book is a trivial scene in “Gates of Fire” where the Spartans are conducting a commando raid on the Persian emperor’s compound.  During some tough going, one of them breaks out laughing and says “Could we BE any more miserable?” 

That is beauty and poetry in my eyes.  It is what I have taught my children, to the best of my ability, and they have listened.  Frankly, I think they are both tougher than me, which is great.

Laughter is a salve and a lubricant.  It finds and loosens knots, heals wounds, and grants courage.