When You Realize Your Resources are Insufficient
We all love a comeback story — so long it isn’t us.
The book of Job (Old Testament) tells of an upright good man who unexpectedly lost everything except his wife and some friends who wondered what he’d done wrong. Everyone told him to blame God, yet he did not. He was a man of integrity, forced to question his reason for being born. Notwithstanding his faith, he wondered aloud if God could take him right then. Covered in boils, lost his children, and his property, all in the span of a day. Nevertheless, he waited for the catastrophes to pass, and eventually his estate was restored to him double. I don’t know anyone who would like to trade places with him.
We love those stories in our media — Rocky, Luke Skywalker, Daniel LaRusso (the Karate Kid), et. al. We get to see the weakness, the challenge, followed by the training montage, and finally the conquering moment, all in two hours or less. We come out of the theater feeling happy for the victor and grateful it wasn’t us.
We love resilience — in others.
What do we ‘normal folks’ do when life happens to us unexpectedly? Business reversals, illness, divorce, betrayal…