Recovery Ability (Resilience)

Probably the most underappreciated and misunderstood force of life is the concept of recovery ability -- or how one responds to the challenges of life.  That can be the calamitous shocks, as well as the self-imposed to increase one's ability to handle any challenges.  Done successfully, one grows stronger with such deliberate dosings and exposures, and prepares themselves to avoid those situations in which one might become overwhelmed by more than can be handled.  So while doing something demanding may cause one to increase their ability to meet subsequent greater challenges successfully, falling off a ten-story building, does not make one less susceptible to falls -- and in fact, will certainly kill them.

Throughout life, one hopes to explore that fine line between too little, and too much challenge (stimulus), and determine the proper dosage that enables one to sustain increasing immunity -- from that which might be deadly or disabling -- just as any animal does in their lifetimes.  That is the basic intelligence test that really matters -- and beyond that, one can fine-tune the subtleties and nuances.

Most athletes experience that turning point at which they no longer recover from their injuries and/or exertions as well as they once did, and seem to enter a prolonged and irreversible state of decreasing recovery ability that signals that it may be time to move onto the next stage of their lives -- beyond world-class competitions.  It happens even to the best -- and to everyone else, a lot sooner -- but that turning point is unmistakable and unforgiving.  But is that the end of life, or just the signal to adapt to even better ways?  Brute force will only get one so far in life, and to go even farther, one has to leap to another dimension and outgrow their childish ways and tactics.

When they do, whole new worlds open up to them -- and they are no longer simply repeating the past -- as the only way possible.  That is what real progress and evolution is about -- and not simply doing more of the same -- hoping for a different and better result.  Often, what they have been doing, will be revealed not as the solution, but actually the root of all their problems -- that keep them from making the leap into the future.  And that's where they want to live their lives -- and not just keep on repeating their retarded past.  Something new and wonderful, has to come into being -- and not just the same old, same old.

Hopefully, everyone is living for the breakthroughs in their own lives -- and are not just the pawns in some other people's or institution's agenda.  We all have that right to our own lives -- and as the authors of our own original, unique, and unprecedented scripts.   That's when life gets really exciting -- to go where we have not gone before, and even nobody has gone before.  But the latter is not our primary concern -- as there may be others, and one shouldn't be overly concerned about what everybody else is doing, while neglecting their own purpose.  It's easy to get distracted by what others think is so important -- and lose sight of our own significance.

Saving "mankind," is not nearly as important and meaningful as saving oneself, and in that doing, one is saving mankind -- one person at a time, and not just the thought, while doing nothing meaningful in one's own life.  And that is usually how mankind goes astray -- by everyone saving everybody else, while nobody bothers to first put on their own emergency mask.  And so the plane crashes -- despite all the good intentions and selflessness.  People are not effective at preventing others from dying and disease; they are most effective at preventing themselves from dying and disease.  That is the effective and winning strategy -- and not preventing everybody else from losing.

It seems a very simple lesson -- but hard to execute, because one thinks reality is what everybody else is doing -- rather than what one is doing themselves.  For many people, there is no distinction between the two -- and so if somebody else is doing it, that is good enough for them -- and they don't have to do it themselves.  They think if the "average" person does it, they don't have to do it themselves, because they are included in the average -- which means they've already done it.  But the average is not the reality for any specific individual -- and what every individual does, is their own reality -- and not vice-versa.  That's how the human experience diverges -- for every individual.

That is the failure of mass culture to instruct properly.  It is the individual who is real, and not the average -- which is only an idea of what everybody is actually doing.  And so when people fail to get excellent results for their efforts and understanding, it is because they are trying to get an average result -- rather than the best they can for themselves -- with the understanding that that is what others are trying to do as well.   There is no athlete or competitor who is trying for the average -- but each is out to do the best they can do -- individually and personally -- and that is what matters.  That is what is misunderstood by the purely academic approach to the understanding of anything.  Everyone is deliberately trying to skew the average -- and not conform to it!  There is no default to the mean.

So arbitrary (work)loads are not as significant as how each individual responds to it -- and recovers in anticipation of the next.  It could be favorably or unfavorably -- depending on that particular individual.  That is individual variation -- and not one size fits all, because the averages say so.  Most will not be negatively impacted while a few may die -- depending on their recovery ability, which is their response to this and any other challenge.  The results remain to be seen -- and cannot be predetermined except for these actual outcomes, and from that, the truth is revealed.  Individual results will vary -- and be valid for every individual.  That is not just "anecdotal" but a case study of one.  It also, is not the only, and the whole truth of the matter.

One person dying from it, does not indicate that everyone will die from it.  That would be a gross generalization.  Or even that one person dying, is one too many that must be prevented at all costs!  If one person dies of a heart attack from exercising, all exercises must heretofore be banned -- because if even one person succumbs in that manner, it is far too dangerous to be beneficial -- or what the pseudo-scientists (media writers) will proclaim.  It does not matter that they had an underlying health condition; rules are sacrosanct -- and must never be violated.  Nobody should determine that appropriateness on their own -- assessing their own risk and rewards.

It must be determined for everyone else -- for their own good!  "Let it be written, let it be done."