Resilience, a key word

And especially relevant to the moment we are living through.  “The capacity of a living being to adapt to a disturbing agent or an adverse state or situation” is the exact definition of resilience. Uncertainty is a concept that accompanies man as a living being, even if he is not aware of it, at least not all the time. We do not know what will happen in the next second, but that is what life is all about: moving forward and getting through the events, small or big, that come our way.

For humanity, pandemics are not something new; they are events that have been repeated throughout history. Several waves of black death, smallpox, yellow fever, and cholera have taken hundreds of millions of people with them.  Since the 14th century, there has been a major epidemic in every century. From the beginning of the 20th century and until today, the world has experienced Asian flu, Avian flu, Ebola, HIV, and above all, the terrible Spanish flu (1918) which affected a third of the world’s population and killed between 50 and 100 million human beings.

This is not the first crisis, nor will it be the last; history is repeating itself and, as always, one way or another we will get through it. All of them have consequences and in this circumstance that paralyzes us today, it is still too soon to see the horizon clearly. Many fortune-tellers and prophets of disaster give their opinions, but in reality, we know nothing. That the world will change is a certainty. Fears for the future of the economy are real. What will happen when this goes away? Will we get used to staying isolated and socializing less, or will we be able to “make up” for the time lost and multiply activities away from home? Will we still travel, go to the movies or the opera, attend a basketball game or the museum?

The international mega-companies will certainly come through, but we will certainly have to appeal to the solidarity of all to prevent the thousands of small industries in our global village, including local shops, bookstores, artists’ and craftsmen’s galleries, from disappearing before the overwhelming mass of the big ones. Return to the idea of helping small entrepreneurs, friends, and neighbors, so that many millions of people can continue to put food on their tables. Think that you can change the way you look at professions or trades and give more importance to teachers, nurses, and caretakers of children or the elderly than to bankers or stockbrokers. The well-being of the world will be based on cooperation, solidarity, sharing the advances of medicine and information. Above all, in teaching children and young people to be resilient, to turn the difficult moment around and overcome it, to see setbacks as an opportunity to learn and to improve. It will be everyone’s job.