Richard W. Brown October 12, 2021
In Resilience My Hidden Power?

Is Resilience My Hidden Power?

The Art of Being Adaptable

Estimated reading time: 1 minute, 36 seconds
In Resilience My Hidden Power?

Is Resilience My Hidden Power?

I received a call from a friend who offered their condolences regarding the loss of Jan. During our conversation; my friend mentioned that I was a resilient individual and that this trait would assist me in moving forward without Jan. While I acknowledged my friend’s sentiment, I was uncertain why they believed my resilience would be particularly beneficial in this situation.

Adaptability has been explored in depth in the context of prevention strategies, with “The Art of Being Adaptable” in Prevention offering valuable insights into the subject matter. This work posits that adaptability is crucial in any successful prevention strategy and provides potential solutions for cultivating and maintaining this trait. Focusing on the importance of flexibility, resilience, and open-mindedness, this work offers practical advice on adapting to changing circumstances. Ultimately, by embracing adaptability as a core value, individuals and organizations can better prepare themselves for challenges. The specific definition that Prevention used was:

Resilience is a set of coping mechanisms we develop over time, and research in the field of positive psychology has found that this quality is determined in part by how we take care of ourselves, the people we surround ourselves with, and what we do to find meaning and purpose in our everyday lives.

Jan’s love has been my guiding light, even in the darkest times. Her unwavering devotion has given me the strength to persevere through life’s obstacles.

The Jan Lilien Education Fund sponsors ongoing sustainability and environmental awareness programs. Gifts made this month; I will match dollar-for-dollar. All donations are tax-deductible.

Subscribe

Contact Us

I receive a commission when you buy a book or product using a link on this page. Thank you for supporting Sharing Jan’s Love blog.

Go back to Stream

Share your thoughts and ideas

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

The Jan Lilien Education Fund!

Donate Now!
In Resilience My Hidden Power?
×
Revolutionary Mothers

Read: February 2019

Get this book

Revolutionary Mothers

by Carol Berkin

Revolutionary Mothers by Carol Berkin, Presidential Professor of American Colonial and Revolutionary History; Women’s History Professor at Baruch College, is one of four books I purchased after my first One Day University Class on February 9, 2019. It should be required reading!

The book explains how women of the Revolution were most active at home, organizing boycotts of British goods, raising funds for the fledgling nation, and managing the family business while struggling to maintain a modicum of normalcy as husbands, brothers, and fathers died.

It was not just the men who fought on the front lines, as in the story of Margaret Corbin, who was crippled for life when she took her husband’s place beside a cannon at Fort Monmouth. She explains the mystery of Molly Pitcher (she was not a person but a group of women), camp followers, women who spied for their country, Loyalist women, and the impact on African American and Native women.

This intelligent and comprehensive history brings these forgotten stories to their rightful place in the struggle for American independence. Dr. Birkin also highlights how their efforts set the stage for the continuing campaign for gender equality.

Subscribe

Contact Us

×
An Assassin in Utopia: The True Story of a Nineteenth-Century Sex Cult and a President's Murder

Read: February 2023

Get this book

An Assassin in Utopia

by Susan Wels

An Assassin in Utopia: The True Story of a Nineteenth-Century Sex Cult and a President’s Murder by Susan Wels is a true crime odyssey that explores a forgotten, astonishing chapter of American history, leading the reader from a free-love community in upstate New York to the shocking assassination of President James Garfield. I had read about this historical period in several other books, most recently Civil War by Other Means.

Susan Wels has written an excellent historical overview of a period we often overlook. I highly recommend An Assassin in Utopia: The True Story of a Nineteenth-Century Sex Cult and a President’s Murder.

The Oneida Community, even though it was the most successful utopian community, is often overlooked. Ms. Wels connects the dots and places the experiment in the center of a transitional period. It is not merely the connection between Charles Julius Guitea and his assassination of President James Garfield, albeit a brutal crime, that shook America to its core, but all of the other linkages. These include “John Humphrey Noyes; his idol, the eccentric newspaper publisher Horace Greeley (founder of the New Yorker and the New York Tribune).”

She also resurrects the importance of the Wormely Compromise and the African-American family that was an instrumental part of public society.

I have found fiction to be something I enjoy, but I knew it was time for a non-fiction book to balance my reading. The New York Times and other publications highly rated An Assassin in Utopia.

The Goodreads summary provides an overview,

It was heaven on earth—and, some whispered, the devil’s garden.

Thousands came by trains and carriages to see this new Eden, carved from hundreds of acres of wild woodland. They marveled at orchards bursting with fruit, thick herds of Ayrshire cattle and Cotswold sheep, and whizzing mills. They gaped at the people who lived in this place—especially the women, with their queer cropped hair and shamelessly short skirts. The men and women of this strange outpost worked and slept together—without sin, they claimed.

From 1848 to 1881, a small utopian colony in upstate New York—the Oneida Community—was known for its shocking sexual practices, from open marriage and free love to the sexual training of young boys by older women. And in 1881, a one-time member of the Oneida Community—Charles Julius Guiteau—assassinated President James Garfield in a brutal crime that shook America to its core.

An Assassin in Utopia is the first book that weaves together these explosive stories in a tale of utopian experiments, political machinations, and murder. This deeply researched narrative—by bestselling author Susan Wels—tells the true, interlocking stories of the Oneida Community and its radical founder, John Humphrey Noyes; his idol, the eccentric newspaper publisher Horace Greeley (founder of the New Yorker and the New York Tribune); and the gloomy, indecisive President James Garfield—who was assassinated after his first six months in office.

Juxtaposed to their stories is the odd tale of Garfield’s assassin, the demented Charles Julius Guiteau, who was connected to all of them in extraordinary, surprising ways.

Against a vivid backdrop of ambition, hucksterism, epidemics, and spectacle, the book’s interwoven stories fuse together in the climactic murder of President Garfield in 1881—at the same time as the Oneida Community collapsed.

Colorful and compelling, An Assassin in Utopia is a page-turning odyssey through America’s nineteenth-century cultural and political landscape.

The Jan Lilien Education Fund sponsors ongoing sustainability and environmental awareness programs. Gifts made this month; I will match dollar-for-dollar. All donations are tax-deductible.

Subscribe

Contact Us

I receive a commission when you buy a book or product using a link on this page. Thank you for supporting Sharing Jan’s Love blog.

×
Roses, in the Mouth of a Lion

Read: January 2023

Get this book

Roses, in the Mouth of a Lion

by Bushra Rehman

Roses, in the Mouth of a Lion by Bushra Rehman is a book I encouraged friends to read before I finished reading it. I highly recommend this page-turner novel, which is punctuated by both joy and loss, full of ’80s music and beloved books. Roses, in the Mouth of a Lion is a must-read coming-of-age story of Razia Mirza, a girl struggling to reconcile her heritage and faith with her desire to be true to herself.

Razia Mirza, the protagonist, leaps off the page or screen. Bushra Rehman describes Corona with prose that is vibrant and clear-eyed. When I lived in Brooklyn, I had, on a few occasions, meetings in Corona a decade before the novel’s setting. Reading the book made me remember that time and place and understand intuitively the world that Razia was struggling to reconcile.

Razia’s choice between her heart and her family is one I will not reveal. However, the novel defines the conflicts between the Pakistani-American community and the love that Razia and Anglea experience in clear prose, and the reader can easily accept various resolutions.

The choice that Rasia makes left me desiring to know what happens next. I have added Bushra Rehman to my favorite authors and plan to read more of her novels.

I had this novel on my list for the last month but could not get to it until now. I wish I had read it sooner. It is the eighth book I have read in 2023.

The Goodreads summary provides an overview,

Razia Mirza grows up amid the wild grape vines and backyard sunflowers of Corona, Queens, with her best friend, Saima, by her side. Razia’s heart is broken when a family rift drives the girls apart. She finds solace in Taslima, a new girl in her close-knit Pakistani-American community. They embark on a series of small rebellions: listening to scandalous music, wearing miniskirts, and cutting school to explore the city.

When Razia is accepted to Stuyvesant, a prestigious high school in Manhattan, the gulf between the person she is and the daughter her parents want her to be, widens. At Stuyvesant, Razia meets Angela and is attracted to her in a way that blossoms into a new understanding. When an Aunty discovers their relationship in the community, Razia must choose between her family and her future.

The Jan Lilien Education Fund sponsors ongoing sustainability and environmental awareness programs. Gifts made this month; I will match dollar-for-dollar. All donations are tax-deductible.

Subscribe

Contact Us

I receive a commission when you buy a book or product using a link on this page. Thank you for supporting Sharing Jan’s Love blog.

×
Isola

Read: May 2025

Get this book

Isola: A Novel

by Allegra Goodman

Set against the backdrop of the sixteenth century, Allegra Goodman‘s Isola brings to life the gripping saga of a remarkable woman’s fight for survival. Journey with Marguerite as she battles the harsh realities of being marooned on a desolate island in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, in the heart of New France, because she dared to love the wrong man, leading her to this lonely exile.

Heir to a fortune, Marguerite is destined for a life of prosperity and gentility. However, her world is turned upside down when she becomes an orphan. Her guardian, an enigmatic and unpredictable man, squanders her inheritance and insists she accompany him on an expedition to New France. The journey takes an unexpected turn when Marguerite is accused of betrayal, leading to her brutal punishment and abandonment on a small island.

Once a child of privilege, adorned in gowns and pearls, Marguerite now finds herself at the mercy of nature. As the weather changes and the island becomes blanketed in ice, she uncovers a faith she never knew she needed.

Allegra Goodman is the author of six novels, including the national bestseller Sam, a Read with Jenna selection; two short story collections; and a book for young readers. Her fiction has appeared in The New Yorker and elsewhere, and has been anthologized in The O. Henry Awards and Best American Short Stories. She lives with her family in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

When you purchase a book through one of my links, I earn a small commission that helps support my passion for reading. This contribution allows me to buy even more books to share with you, creating an incredible cycle of discovering great reads together! Your support truly makes a difference!

Enjoy a limited-time offer of 20% off your next book purchase at Bookshop.org!

×
The Searcher: A Novel

Read: March 2024

Get this book

The Searcher: A Novel

by Tana French

Today, I started reading Tana French‘s The Searcher: A Novel. Last week, I read The Hunter by the same author. I should have read The Searcher first, as it is the prequel to The Hunter, but reading in reverse order helped my enjoyment. Despite knowing some of the suspenseful twists and turns the story would take, I found it a page-turner.

The story follows Cal Hooper, a retired Chicago police officer who seeks a fresh start in a tranquil Irish village. However, when a local boy approaches him to investigate his missing brother, Cal discovers that the town has its share of dark secrets. The book raises thought-provoking questions about distinguishing right from wrong in a complicated world and what we risk when making that decision.

Tana French is a highly acclaimed crime novelist who skillfully creates a captivating and suspenseful atmosphere throughout the book.

×
Come and Get It

Read: February 2024

Get this book

Come and Get It

by Kiley Reid

I recently started reading “Come and Get It” by Kiley Reid, a celebrated New York Times bestselling author known for her book Such a Fun Age. The novel is about a senior resident assistant named Millie Cousins, who, in 2017, attended the University of Arkansas. Millie aspires to graduate, get a job, and buy a house.

She is offered an unusual opportunity by Agatha Paul, a visiting professor and writer, which she accepts. Unfortunately, Strange new friends, dorm pranks, and illicit behavior undermine Millie’s ambition.

Overall, “Come and Get It” is a gripping story about desire, consumption, and recklessness. It explores themes of money, indiscretion, and bad behavior through Millie’s eyes. The novel is highly anticipated, given that Kiley Reid is an acclaimed and award-winning author.

×