Resilience is a measure of privileged

“Resilience is a measure of privileged”

a quote from Alex from the ADHD adults podcast.

Blimey this got me thinking 🤔

Resilience is seen as a good thing, a superpower to be developed and fostered, to equip us all with “bounce-back-ability”. If you persevere enough, you can develop resilience. But this misses out the important consideration of privilege.

Say, for instance, your employer issues you with a redundancy notice, or they inform you that they will be changing your working conditions (line management structure) but not give the details of when or what it will look like, it is a persons resilience that needs to be tapped into, to allow them to continue delivering for that employer during the times of uncertainty. And we’re all in the same boat, right, so we should all be able to cope and support each other?

While society appears to see individuals who are not able to cope due to low resilience as weak, or insufficient, “where’s your resilience – show a bit of backbone”, there’s less acknowledgement that privileged enhances resilience.

As such, we can’t all cope equally because we don’t live in a society with equal privilege.

I am lucky and I recognise some of my privileges. I’m not fearful of my safety due to the colour of my skin. I am no longer having to care for individuals who are solely dependent on me for survival. I’m not at risk of having no food in my cupboards. My current health does not influence the choices I make each day. Those are but a few.

And my privileges provide a safety net, so the current turbulence in work is not so impactful to me. While that may sound boastful, I do not mean it to be. Rather I use it as an example to illustrate we shouldn’t measure resilience as a universal trait linked to a persons inner strength.

“Resilience is a measure of privileged”

#Resilience #Privilege #Empathy #CareMatters #StrengthInDiversity