English

Building Your Resiliency

How did you do on the hardihood quiz? (see end of section for the quiz) Not so hot? Well join the club. There are a lot of virtues lacking in the current generation of men, but I think an argument can be made that our lack of resiliency is the most critical. And I say that as a man who has himself struggled to live this virtue. In law school, I engaged in a pathetic routine each semester. After finishing my finals, I would initially feel pretty confident in how I did. But then I would sit and think about the exams in detail, remembering questions that I missed, issues that I failed to raise. My confidence would quickly evaporate, replaced by a sense of utter doom and despair. I would become convinced that I had gotten a C or even failed the test. I wouldn’t get my grades back for several weeks, but I would spend that time in a state my wife called “logging out,” which, as the name suggests, involved me laying on the couch like a depressed log. When my grades would finally come in, I would be relieved to find I hadn’t flunked out, Kate would chide me for my irrational behavior, and I would swear that I wouldn’t waste my time doing that again. But come finals time the next semester,

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