05 Jun 3 Things The Most Resilient People Do Every Day
via Eric Barker
Thus far, 2020 seems to have been some sort of cosmic clerical error.
All around the world people are falling ill, everyone’s afraid, and the economy, well… Let’s just say I’ve never heard the word “trillion” used so often and it certainly has not been in a good way. In the United States, some bad actors are exploiting peaceful protests of noble intent to loot and cause mayhem.
Times are tough so, of course, people will become cruel and selfish…
Or maybe not.
In 2005 Hurricane Katrina hit the US and 80% of New Orleans was flooded. Literally, 90,000 square miles were declared a disaster area. Of course, the news was saturated with stories of widespread murder, rape and gangs running amok.
But after subsequent vetting, it turned out the majority of those stories were untrue. Just rumor and media sensationalism.
Yeah, there were gangs, but what were some of them doing? One woman Denise Moore, recounted her experience.
From A Paradise Built in Hell:
“[The gang members] got together, figured out who had guns and decided they were going to make sure that no women were getting raped… They were the ones getting juice for the babies. They were the ones getting clothes for people who had walked through that water. They were the ones fanning the old people, because that’s what moved the guys, the gangster guys the most, the plight of the old people… We were trapped like animals, but I saw the greatest humanity I’d ever seen from the most unlikely places.”
The cynics will say this is just one person’s recollection. The exception to the rule…
Uh, actually, no. That’s not the exception — that’s the rule. Looking at the research we see that during disasters, altruism is the rule. Selfishness is the exception.
From A Paradise Built in Hell:
Studies of people in urgently terrifying situations have demonstrated—as Quarantelli puts it in the dry language of his field—that “instead of ruthless competition, the social order did not break down,” and that there was “cooperative rather than selfish behavior predominating.”
To what degree? So much so that during a disaster, there are more people heading toward it to help than actually running away.
From A Paradise Built in Hell:
Charles Fritz had identified the phenomenon of convergence in 1957, writing, “Movement toward the disaster area usually is both quantitatively and qualitatively more significant than flight or evacuation from the scene of destruction…”
Thomas Hobbes needs to update his theory of human nature, stat.
From A Paradise Built in Hell:
Many fear that in disaster we become something other than we normally are—helpless or bestial and savage in the most common myths—or that is who we really are when the superstructure of society crumbles. We remain ourselves for the most part, but freed to act on, most often, not the worst but the best within. The ruts and routines of ordinary life hide more beauty than brutality.
Yes, things are bad. But it shouldn’t make us fear that human nature is bad or that our problems cannot be overcome.
Over the longer haul, kindness and cooperation are often the odds-on favorite, even in the worst of times. So there is good reason to have hope right now in our time of need.
“Whew! Good. Everything’s gonna be fine, Marge. Back to Netflix…”
Hold on. I’m not here to get you high on blind optimism. That’s what Instagram influencers are for. This is not the time to buy into dreamy wish fulfillment. (But if you do, make sure to use my promo code “DENIAL.”)
Seriously, we can’t just fantasize our way out of this one. Fantasies are not the kind of hope we need right now. (Being long-term optimistic while delivering a short-term, tough-love-kick-in-the-pants is 280% on-brand for me and you know that.)
Blind optimism and wishful thinking fade quickly. We need some action and accomplishment here to actually improve our lives and the world around us. Then we’ll feel better and it’ll last. Human nature is on our side but we have plenty of work to do. Planet ain’t gonna fix itself; grab a shovel.
You’re dealing with life and death, financial concerns, issues of justice, and the safety and sanity of those you love. We have to get all that back on track in a world where clear answers are less than forthcoming.
We don’t need wishes. We need active hope. The kind of hope that comes from a good plan, one that you are confident you can execute.
And that’s where the science of hope comes in. (Yes, there is science to hope. And thank god because otherwise I’d have nothing to write about — and yours truly would never hack it as an Instagram Influencer.) Scientific hope is much different than the hope you’re used to but it’s more proactive and effective. It’s more than a wish, and that’s exactly what we need right now. So who has the info we need?
Before his passing, Charles Snyder was a professor at the University of Kansas and editor of the Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology. His books are Handbook of Hope: Theory, Measures, and Applications and Psychology of Hope.
He’s got answers on how we can do better so we can live better — and then, yes, we will feel better. And we can rebuild our lives, this world, and help those we love.
Suit up. We’re going in…
A New Hope (Not The “Star Wars” Kind)
Hope isn’t just crossing your fingers, covering your ears and insisting all will be well. That’s a dream. Reviewing the literature on disaster scenarios people actually had to get stuff done to improve their lives. Hope isn’t just passive wishful thinking. It’s also inextricably tied to action — helping others and turning an upside down world right side up.
According to Snyder:
Hope is the sum of perceived capabilities to produce routes to desired goals, along with the perceived motivation to use those routes… According to the theory, people who are hopeful believe they are good at generating goal thoughts, creating effective pathways leading to goal attainment, maintaining agency thoughts to provide enough motivation for the goal pursuit, and handling barriers that arise.
Snyder studied “high hope” and “low hope” people and there were stark differences:
From Psychology of Hope:
As research shows, as compared to lower-hope people high-hope persons have a greater number of goals, have more difficult goals, have more success at achieving their goals, have greater happiness and less distress, have superior coping skills, recover better from physical injury, and report less burnout at work.
What’s interesting is that hope correlates with grades in school — but not with IQ scores. It’s about what you choose to do, not any innate ability.
And being scientifically hopeful isn’t a new way of thinking you need to learn. You already do it in some areas of your life; it’s just usually unconscious. That’s why this post is titled “3 things the most resilient people do every day.” Super-resilient, super-hopeful people just do these things more often and more deliberately.
Okay, here’s your handy-dandy simple formula for the type of hope that gets stuff done. Just remember that you need to “fill the GAP”:
Goals + Agency + Pathways = Hope
When you have goals (knowing what you want) and agency (the drive to get what you want) and pathways (the ability to generate methods to achieve what you want), you get hope.
With this type of hope, you don’t wish things will work out; you know deep down in your bones they will. You never doubt it.
Okay, we know what hope is but how do we fill that “GAP”? Well, first, we’re gonna need some…
… keep reading the full & original article HERE
#happiness #positivepsychology #resilience #hope #agency #goals