Make your own good fortune

The key to resilience

These days, a lot of people remark on my resilience. They wonder at how I keep going amidst all the personal challenges I’m facing. They want to know how I do it. Well, mainly I do it because I have to do it or else my children won’t have the safety and stability they deserve. But when I look back on the course of my life, I know there’s more to it than that. For as long as I can remember, I have always had a deep core belief that things will work out for me. I just expect them to. Some might call that hubris, but I think the way we think about ourselves has the power to affect where we end up in life, and that’s a good thing.

Smurfs = attitude goals

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People have always told me that I was lucky. I was lucky to get a scholarship to college. I was lucky to win at slots. I was lucky to land a book deal. I was lucky to score a beautiful house for a sweet price. But the thing is, looking back on these moments, the outcomes didn’t feel lucky. They felt right.

There is a special kind of joy that comes from making choices that align with your values. In each of these cases, that’s what I did. I saw an opportunity to attend the college that matched my goals, so I applied. Back then I thought I was going to become a veterinarian, and NCSU has one of the best veterinary schools in the country, so it was a no-brainer. Please note: I am not now nor have I ever been a veterinarian. It turned out not to be for me, but it didn’t matter that I had the wrong major in mind. What mattered is that I chose a goal and took steps to pursue it. That put me in the position to receive the reward of not only getting accepted for admission but for a scholarship that changed my life.

You might look at that outcome and think: well, you were still lucky to win the scholarship! Yes. I was. I invariably benefitted from my privilege as a cis white woman, and from my parent’s generational wealth and privilege in American society. Those factors are ever present no matter what your attitude is about life, and some people do have it much harder than others. Let’s be clear about that. But beyond the challenges of systemic privilege and oppression, our individual attitudes toward our failures and successes can help determine our trajectory in life.