What Is the Light at the End of the Tunnel?

There’s got to be a morning after… or so the song goes. But what does that mean? Is this the unbridled optimism of the glass half full cadre? Cheerful to a fault. Chipper at dawn like a dagger in a sleepy back?

Look! There is a light at the end of the tunnel. In our darkest hour we fervently hope to see the light and know, somehow that the light will be better. The world will look better in the morning. The clouds will clear, the rain will stop, the wind will die down and a bluebird will begin to chirp relentlessly. Relentless chirps of joy.

But the reality is that not everyone wakes to a bright new day of hope and good goody goodness.

Sometimes the light simply reveals the carnage that came before. Painful, lingering, raw. The light reveals what is. It is then up to us to utilize the light to show us the way forward. What needs to be cleaned up. What needs to be redone, rethought, revitalized, recycled, refused.

There is a light at the end of the tunnel. But first you must make it through the tunnel. Hopefully your tunnel does not resemble the Lincoln Tunnel in Stephen King’s The Stand. Hopefully you can slog through without climbing over wreckage and the real or imagined bodies of those who will not see the light at the end of the tunnel.

There is a light at the end of the tunnel if you can persevere.

And if you persevere, a little optimism is a small reward for the achievement. Why optimism? Optimism because you have again demonstrated resilience in the face of difficult challenges. And resilience is one of the most useful transferrable skills you can develop. Some might categorize resilience as a soft skill. Some might even assign it an aspect of character, meaning you’re either born with it or you are not. Not hardly.

Resilience is a skill, but it is not soft in any measurable sense of the word. It is hard. Hard to learn. Hard to keep. Hard to tap when you need it.

The brilliance of the dawn may depend on the resilience you demonstrate in the middle of the night when the moon has set behind the storm clouds.

The light at the end of the tunnel is not a goal unto itself. It is merely a portal to see the work before you with greater clarity.

You bring the resilience.?