I used to say it was what made us skilled at maneuvering socially and professionally. I used to believe in that narrative too. That being resilient was a strength that made you innately resourceful because nothing worked the way it was expected to, because your baseline was a failed system you could not depend on. Being resilient meant you had a backup, you knew how to wiggle out of a jam, you knew how to overcome.

What you allow is what will continue.

How did they trick us? How did they convince us to take pride in this quality to the point where we use it in our elevator pitches and interviews on our questionable ability to succeed against all odds? How did they manage to flip their failure into something we excel in so well that we want to keep doing it?

Don’t get me wrong; I’m not saying we shouldn’t use adversity to our advantage. But why do we revel in the masochism and smirk at our unrelenting willingness to adapt?

The Lebanese take a certain sad pride in their fate, pointing out that no other country could take such a beating and still function, even in such an odd fashion. The paradox is that the qualities that enable the Lebanese to survive – the close clan ties and the unremitting ability to wheel and deal – are the very things that are tearing the country apart.

“Life Among the Ruins in Beirut“ by John Kifner for The New York Times

That archived article from December 1981 cited the same romanticism of the past mixed with the awe of how the Lebanese manage to keep the engines running when all signs point to rusted gears. Just because we can find a way to breathe as the water fills the sinking ship, does that mean we let the captains steer us into every iceberg? Even when you know they’ll be the first on the life raft while you’ve drowned or you’re left out to sea?

Being resilient is the propaganda our government sold us for decades. They managed to get us to flaunt our ability to keep taking their shit and turn it into a phoenix rising from the ashes. We voted in the same parasites and sang about the country being rebuilt again and again and again. We applauded our expats abroad. We pushed our youth out the doors. We gave them away only to see what they could’ve done at home if they weren’t busy being resilient. We accepted less than we deserve as humans of a so-called nation and instead of asking them why, we said we are resilient.

Well, I am tired of being resilient.