“Endurance is patience. It is shortening your time horizon so you just have to get through this day. Endurance is living with unpleasantness. In fact, it is finding you can adapt and turn the strangest circumstances into routine. Endurance is fortifying. It is discovering you can get socked in the nose and take it. Above all, endurance is living with uncertainty*. Sometimes it’s remaining quiet in the face of uncertainty because no conjecture will really tell you what is coming. Endurance is the knowledge that the only way out is through and whatever must be borne will be borne.”
David Brooks
Click here to read the May 14, 2020 OpEd piece written by David Brooks
* The Antidote to Uncertainty is Gratitude! A previously published post.
Thank you for sharing this – it really moved me. I love the line that “endurance is fortifying… discovering… you can take it.” It’s so important for our mental health to acknowledge this is hard and nothing is normal, but that we must persevere.
Gratitude and kindness are the universal antidotes.
Often I disagree with David Brooks’ op ed columns but I have been reading them, always with interest for years. Once I even emailed him with thanks for a particularly thoughtful message. This was one of his bests.