Corey Mwamba

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Entries for 28th Sep 2019

It occurs to me that the word "resilience" commonly crops up only when the institution deliberately creates stress and pressure. #PhDchat

The path is simple, elegant:

  1. harsh environment is created
  2. EVERYONE experiences and maintains harsh environment

I am pretty certain that those in the middle role of maintaining the environment are also stretched, pressured.

But what maintains the environment is a simple sentence model: "you have to be resilient."

Sometimes it's "you have to learn how to be resilient," or "develop some resilience."

But there is an obvious alternative solution.

What then matters is the will to change things, and the resources one has to do so, i.e. one's capacity.

I define capacity in fuller terms here:

What, then?

  1. Maybe we should see how environments are being made harsh, and work on changing them.

  2. Maybe we should quietly only use resilience as a descriptive term after something has happened (I also think this about creativity), rather than a badge to acquire.