Why Resilience Is Bullshit

We so often hear how we need to be resilient and that resilient people are the ones who succeed and come out on top. I say bullshit. To me, the word resilience implies struggle, fighting against the current situation or status quo. There’s a strong negative connotation to the word resilience. It conjures an image of a person as a punching bag, taking hits and just trying to not be knocked out.

Look it up. The dictionary defines resilience as “the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties.” It’s about bouncing back. It’s about enduring. It’s about returning to a previous state. But who wants to return to the state they were in when things went to shit in the first place? Nobody. That’s the problem with the word. It’s a word of a passive state. It’s a word of reaction, not of action.

This is a mindset that needs to be tossed out. It’s an old way of thinking. Instead of “resilience,” we need to be talking about something far more powerful, far more dynamic, and far more positive: our capacity for growth and expansion.

This isn’t just semantics; it’s a fundamental shift in perspective. It’s the difference between being a rubber ball that bounces back to its original shape and a seed that, when buried under pressure and darkness, breaks open and grows into something entirely new.

Let’s take the very example often used to define resilience: Oprah Winfrey.

Oprah was born into rural poverty in Mississippi and endured a difficult childhood that included abuse and hardship. She was raised in a low-income family and faced numerous obstacles, but the story we’re told is that she demonstrated resilience by refusing to be defined by her circumstances.

And sure, that’s one way to look at it. She bounced back from a difficult childhood. But that’s a painfully shallow and incomplete reading of her life. It minimizes the truly extraordinary thing she did.

Her resilience allowed her to transform personal trauma into a powerful connection with her audience. She created a show that addressed deeply personal and often difficult topics, resonating with millions of viewers, ultimately breaking the cycle of poverty and becoming a billionaire philanthropist.

This wasn’t resilience. This was a radical expansion of her capacity as a human being.

Instead of resilience, Oprah showed a capacity for growth and expansion outside of the circumstances she faced. She didn’t just endure. She didn’t just bounce back to some original state. She took the pressure, the pain, the struggle, and she used it as fuel to become something more. She expanded her capacity for empathy, for communication, for understanding the human condition, and for building an enterprise around those very qualities. Her story is not about returning to the status quo; it’s about transcending it completely.

Why the “Resilience” Mindset is a Trap

Thinking in terms of resilience can be a trap. It keeps us focused on the struggle, on the difficulty, on the past. When you’re “being resilient,” you’re constantly fighting against something. You’re bracing for the next hit. It’s a draining and defensive posture. It suggests that the best you can hope for is to survive the storm and return to the way things were before.

But the storm changes you. The pressure changes you. And if you’re only focused on being resilient, you’re missing the opportunity to be changed for the better.

• Resilience is about defense. Expansion is about offense. One is about protecting yourself; the other is about creating new possibilities. The resilient person survives. The expansive person thrives.
• Resilience is about returning to a previous state. Expansion is about evolving into a new one. The resilient person looks back at what was lost. The expansive person looks forward to what can be created.
• Resilience accepts the status quo as the baseline. Expansion rejects it entirely. The resilient mindset says, “I just need to get back on my feet.” The expansive mindset says, “I’m building a whole new foundation.”

This is not just a philosophical argument. It’s a practical one. The way we frame our challenges dictates our response to them. If you tell yourself you need to be resilient, you’ll put your head down and grit your teeth. You’ll focus on enduring. If you tell yourself you need to expand your capacity, you’ll look for the lessons, the new skills, and the opportunities for growth that the challenge has presented you with.

Expanding Your Capacity: The Blueprint for Success

So what does it actually mean to expand your capacity? It means you take the pressure, the pain, and the problems you’re facing and you use them to build something new within yourself. It’s a creative act. It’s a conscious choice.

Think of it like this:

1. The Artist’s Expansion

A painter loses the use of their dominant hand in an accident. A “resilient” person might spend years in physical therapy trying to get the hand back to its original function. An “expansive” artist learns to paint with their other hand, or with their foot, or even with a new medium entirely. They don’t just recover their ability; they expand their artistic capacity to include a new, unique style born from the challenge.

2. The Entrepreneur’s Expansion

A business owner’s company fails. The resilient entrepreneur might try to get another job in the same industry, hoping to return to the stable income and position they once had. The expansive entrepreneur analyzes the failure, learns from their mistakes, acquires new skills in marketing or finance that they didn’t have before, and starts a new, better company from the ground up, one that is built on the lessons of the past. The failure wasn’t a setback; it was an investment in their capacity for future success.

3. The Scholar’s Expansion

A student fails a class. The resilient student might retake the class, just trying to get the grade they need. The expansive student asks why they failed. They seek out new study methods, they find a mentor, they delve into the subject from a different angle, and they learn not just the material, but how they learn best. They expand their intellectual capacity, making them a better student for the rest of their life.

This is the central argument. Resilience is a passive state. It’s about enduring. It’s a word that puts you in a defensive posture, fighting against the world. Expansion is an active state. It’s about creating. It’s a word that puts you in a creative posture, using the world to build something new.

It’s easy to look at someone like Oprah and say, “Wow, she was so resilient.” But that’s like saying a diamond is resilient. Sure, it’s hard, but that’s not the full story. The diamond is a result of immense pressure and heat, and in that process, it was fundamentally transformed. It expanded its capacity from a lump of carbon into something of incredible value and beauty.

Oprah didn’t just “recover.” She was transformed. She didn’t just “bounce back” from trauma; she expanded her capacity to connect, to lead, to inspire, and to build. The same goes for the artist, the entrepreneur, and the student. The challenge isn’t a wall to be bounced off of; it’s a forge in which you are shaped into something greater than you were before.

Your Call to Action: Stop Being Resilient

So my challenge to you is simple: stop being resilient. Stop focusing on what you need to endure. Stop trying to “get back to normal.” Normal is what got you here in the first place.

Instead, ask yourself these questions:

• What new skill can I learn from this?
• What new perspective can I gain?
• How can this challenge force me to grow beyond my current limits?
• What new opportunity can I create from this adversity?

These questions shift your focus from passive resistance to active creation. They turn a “negative situation” into a creative crucible.

Your capacity as a human being is not a fixed thing. It’s not a container that can only be filled so full. It is an elastic, dynamic, and ever-expanding force. The challenges you face aren’t there to test your ability to hold on; they are there to test your ability to expand.

The next time you face a difficult situation, don’t think “I need to be resilient.” Instead, think, “This is an opportunity for me to expand.” The world isn’t trying to beat you down and knock you off your feet. It’s giving you a chance to learn to fly.

Stop talking about resilience. Start talking about expansion. It’s the only way to not just survive, but to truly become who you are meant to be.