To me, “grit” or “resiliency” means working hard for benefits of the future despite the hardships of the process. It means willing to persevere through difficulty and to put in the time, strength, and energy necessary in order to pursue long-term goals. Additionally, the terms have to do with a longer period of time instead of a short one because the work done now all has something to do with the future that is far away, not a just that of a couple of hours or days. I also think of the word “resistance” when thinking of the idea of resilience because the specific terms personally means that I have to resist stumbles in the road to be able to come back and continue on with whatever I am doing. However, through failure and hardships, “grit” or “resistance” indicates that we have to accept the negative parts and use that to become even stronger and smarter when in the process of achieving our goals.
In my life and the lives of others, I see resilience play out a lot, especially with the idea of motivation. Everyone here at college including me have end goals, whether it is to enter a particular workforce or continue on with graduate school. Even if someone is unsure of what they want to do at this point, they will be able to realize their goals soon enough while they are in college. We use resilience to work harder to get good grades and stay involved in the campus. Personally for me, doing poorly on an exam for a certain class will definitely disappointment me, but this at the same time will encourage me to work harder for the next time. Failing beforehand allows not just me, but also a ton of Oxford students here that we can all learn from our previous mistakes and use that to become better in the future that is to come. Meanwhile, I know friends who are athletes, and they have the same mindset when playing a soccer or basketball game. Losing a game will encourage them to try harder for the next. Likewise, with this idea of “grit” or “resiliency” in mind, we all get back up on our feet to put in the effort and succeed. We all have an end goal as college students that we want to ultimately achieve, and this resilience will be a motivating factor to help us do that.