“Congregating along the margins of the Nile Valley, as droughts gripped the eastern Mediterranean, the inhabitants on the Nile were introduced to farming and hearding 7,000 years ago. Once they began to depend on farming for their livelihood, the Egyptians were inexorably linked to the vageries of Nile floods. They responded to crisis with ingenuity manifesting the ‘resilience’ that has so far enabled humanity to survive daunting conditions.”

Pat and Phil, I certainly concur that self-awareness, humility and courage are prerequisite attributes are necessary to survive and creativity is evoked, however I must add prayer to our Creator as superceding all other….

As I study past civilizations especially those that existed 7-10,000 years ago, I find man’s inherent resilience to adapt to challenges quite apparent, however with today’s technology so linked to so much of man’s daily discipline, because of our vulnerabilities as a result, I believe prayer is integral for man’s weaknesses in greed, arrogance, and self-serving agenda today has corrupted mankind to the extent that mankind’s survival hangs by a button ready to bring us to near-extinction.

God’s weeping tears as he sees so much strife and “weakness” in those pledging themselves and “entrusted” to serve the majority interests as well as in human beings from here to yonder in their daily interactions pervaded in hatred and argumentative manner with so much disrespect for the individual.

If I may add prayer and certainly, repentence, for with these attributes and passion in self-awareness, humility and courage, we pray that mankind will become more self-aware of the need for humility and the courage to challenge one’s self and those that prefer performing dastardly acts of degradation of others.

Another great post! Thank you.

It is also good to see others reading willing to share their valued thoughts and concerns about the plight of mankind’s woes in the 21st century when one would of expected prayer, repentence, self-awareness, humility and courage to have led one another to not necessaarily embrace one another, but to at least respect one another. We must take the time to read history, not amend it to fashion it to our preference. We must make an attempt to understand one another and how we have been affected by the past to better prepare us for the future. God Bless us all!

Christopher Tingus
chris.tingus@gmail.com

*We must thwart the ever growing bureaucracy before us as it will choke our ability to act expediently and with proficiency.

Our Republic was founded on Judeo-Christian values as individuals mustered the courage to flee the King and his taxes and fees….

From Town Meeting to Congress and to the White House, Mr. President, the people are the master and those that serve must do so without self-agenda for it is with clarity that we see the lack of transparency today impoverishing the most charitable people to have ever existed….God Bless America!

Of course what is interesting about this is the postscript to the postscript. The room of high level Executive Branch players was silent as they were smart enought to recognize the truth of the SEC reps words. By the way he went back and got the SEC draft proposed legislation on emergency market closing which was completely inadequate at that point and Congress passed it and signed into law. Imagine that “market closing” legislation as part of resilience. Anyhow, signs of the truth of the SEC reps comments appeared again on 9/11. Much of the backroom activity of Wall Street even before 9/11 was going outside NYC before that date! Dispersal can be resilience and certainly BC–Business Contiunity is now big business. One of Clinton’s most competent Regional Director appointments was John Copenhaver who came to Region IV in Atlanta from IBM. I had not really thought much about business continuity (resilitence) before talking with John. But he told me that IBM was already seeing that as a profit center and was generating $5-6 billion a year in revenues already and saw that doubling or tripling each decade. Anyhow some excellent work is being done in Business Continuity generally and a fine free journal produced by the Arnold family –Disaster Recovery Journal is available for background info. largely vendor supported but has good technical articles and conferences. Sorry to make a plug but only one I know of in this arena. I wish each professional discipline would spend more time thinking about resiliency. Is a will or advance directive resiliency? This whole thread has been very interesting Phil. Congrats again.

I think it also takes recognition of a bigger picture. When you can see a horizon beyond your current troubles; when you can see the proverbial ‘light’ at the end of the tunnel; when you know that pressing on will take you to a higher mountain peak – then you can move through and past the trouble. If all we see is trouble and no hope, then resilience becomes more difficult to find that core of resilience inside.

With your permission, I’d like to post a link to this article on my blog. I focus on teaching companies and staff to be more Resilient, and your article is a perfect companion to that.

But let’s give some serious thought to how a government would make public policy for a system where the individual people and organizations are not similarly situated. How would that square with our cherished Rule of Law?

Robert E. Lee was amazing in executing a flexible, supple, and yielding strategy. But, finally, Mr. Lincoln found Grant and Sherman and a great wind ripped up the willow by its roots.

When I lived in Japan I loved stands of bamboo. In this country I tend to view them — rather than attractively resilient — as persistently invasive. But this reflects a purposeful bias that not everyone will share.

Whether we are looking at physical, individual, or community resilience we must be mindful of our purposes and careful in evaluating our risks. This is not a trivial task at any level and increasingly difficult the more individuals are involved in the choosing.

Finally, it seems to me, resilience is about honest self-awareness, humility in making choices, and courage in implementing the choices. I have seen bureaucracies try to avoid these messy issues and I understand why. I have never seen the avoiding behaviors produce anything worthwhile. But I have seen self-awareness, humility, and courage produce great results.