Navigating with Demi

Everyone may have different definitions of resilience. And I draw the line where someone not only keeps going in the face of adversity but moves forward in their own unyielding, authentic and compassionate ways.

Keep going is not inherently difficult. Because as long as we breathe, we never stop living (though one can also debate around the definition of living and drawing the line between “existing” and “living”, we are not going there today). Therefore, by definition, no matter what cards we deal with, as long as one chooses life, one is ought to keep going.

But moving forward in our own unyielding, authentic and compassionate ways, would require consistent effort. While there are many qualities and philosophies that I’ve observed those who are resilient embody, two distinctive mental models stand out.

First – they understand and respect probabilities and therefore the nature of hardships.

One redeeming characteristic of Maths is that it doesn’t discriminate. Statistics and probabilities suggest the randomness of nature – that the longer a being exists, the higher the chance of experiencing a greater variety. And part of that greater varieties include stuff that nobody wants – the painful, tragic and often times seemingly unfair part of life.

Resilient people recognise that. They seem to have a better understanding that it’s all part of being. The good and the bad.

When my father was diagnosed with cancer earlier this year, I remember the precise moment when it hit me – hey, your hardship mode is switched on. Out of all the rehearsals I’ve had in my head throughout the years, i.e. telling myself that hardships are more and more inevitable the older I get, and taking a stock of different scenarios and what I would do to survive each one of them (I wouldn’t recommend this exercise though; as my dad would say, it’s borderline mental), my greatest fear had been facing the inescapable passing of my parents.

My father, however, never had to exercise those theoretical fire drills because he grew up with hardships. He’s survived the longest famine in PRC history as a child, dropped out of high school and gave up a rare opportunity to go to university to labour and care for his younger siblings, joined the army and survived the last war China was engaged in. And he went onto provide me with a very uneventful but utmost carefree childhood and shielded me with unwavering love. I consider myself extremely lucky.

He’s also lived an active lifestyle, one that would be deemed healthy by all conventional measures. He’s relatively young, in his early 60s, with no family history of cancer.

I remember asking myself on my flight back to him, why my dad, and why now? ChatGPT and Google told me statistically 1 in 3 men likely to develop cancer in their lifetimes. And biology classes in high school reminded me that the longer we live, the more cellular mutations we experience, the greater the probability that one of those mutations lead to something that may seem so unfair to our brains.

In another word, cancer doesn’t discriminate – it’s not personal, it’s just probability.

I am still learning to fully register this very concept.

And I hope that eventually, it would free me from the endless and unproductive searching for answers to questions that have only seemed to lead me right back to this very fact.

Second – resilient people choose to focus intently on what they can control, however limiting that might be.

Most of us do understand what’s more likely within our control and what’s not at our very core, e.g. nobody sober would likely consider natural disasters are within one’s control. And yet it’s so tempting to believe and behave otherwise in practice. And I know this intimately well as someone who’s used to exercising control and taking command of any situation.

At the start of learning about dad’s cancer diagnosis, I almost immediately felt like his life or death were solely on my shoulder as I took on the role of primary caregiver in the family being an only child. It seemed odd in retrospect but completely justified in the moment to discount a wide range of elements that would affect this journey, e.g. probabilities, medical choices, operating skills of the doctors, dad’s willpower to fight cancer, and mom’s love and care, their general mental states etc.

What I am learning in this process, is to recognise the very limiting effect my actions would have in the outcome, and focus solely on the precise part of each element that my decisions would impact – which doctor available would be the most skilled statistically to handle the specific surgery my dad would require, what sets of medicines we’d have access to based on the final diagnosis, which insurance packages can help us mitigate financial impact, what care we can afford to hire, how I can support mom and dad’s mental states, how I can prepare my family in the worst case scenario etc.

And to know that almost nothing else are within my control – the outcome of the actual operation, accuracy of the final diagnosis, impact and potential side effects of the medicines we choose, availability of insurance, availability of help and the extent to which they are effective, how mom and dad decide to cope in their own ways etc.

The faith that if I execute these actionable decisions right, I can sleep sound at night knowing that I’ve given my best effort in affecting the outcome, is not an easy one to acquire. And I am still learning how.

I hope I will learn to fully respect the nature and power of probabilities and hardships. I hope I will learn to appreciate and to be content with the faith that however limiting my impact might be, they are the only worthwhile focus of my energy and time. And the universe will take care of the rest.

I hope I will eventually learn to become resilient, to show up for my family and to move forward in my unyielding, authentic and compassionate way.