ABSTRACT
In this ®nal chapter, I would like to pull together the material from the previous ones in order to provide an overview of resilience. When tough times threaten or appear without warning, you have choices to make such as: ®nding a constructive way to deal with them by experimenting with various problem-solving options; burying your head in the sand and hoping that they will disappear; looking to others to deal with them for you; or withdrawing into self-pity and helplessness by complaining continually about unwanted events in your life and believing there is nothing that you can do about them. The ®rst choice is the resilient response, though some of the individuals I've presented in this book took the other routes before, however reluctantly, summoning up the energy and determination to face their dif®culties. What follows are key lessons to remember in developing and maintaining resilience.
