Mistaking Endurance for Real Strength
This is a personal reflection on stress, dissociation, and the real
difference between simply enduring pressure and truly knowing how to manage it,
drawn from an experience of collapsing under stress in high school. Revisiting
that experience through the lens of a book on strength and resilience, I look
at why patience alone isn't the same as resilience—and why Korea still needs
better resources to teach people how to cope with stress.
Ever since I was young, I've had a lot of
patience. I've also had a certain kind of drive—the ability to push through and
get things done. Because of that, I spent my entire school years serving as
class president, student council president, and similar roles. I was proud of
myself. I genuinely believed I was tough.
But there was something else going on beneath
the surface. During my school years, I occasionally experienced a strange
symptom: everything in front of me would suddenly turn blurry, almost foggy. In
high school, this happened badly enough that I fainted and was taken to the
hospital. The doctor explained what was happening to me at the time—I don't
remember the exact diagnosis, but I remember being told it was caused by
stress.
Title : Do Hard Things - Why We Get
Resilience Wrong and the Surprising Science of Real Toughness-
Author: Magness, Steve
A Warning Sign I Didn't Understand
What could have caused that much stress at an
age when all I really needed to do was study and get through school? I still
don't know for certain. But looking back, I think it may have had something to
do with the fact that I was, by nature, an introvert—and yet I kept taking on
leadership roles like class president anyway, pushing myself to grow despite
that. (That stress ended up changing me significantly over the years that
followed. In many ways, I think those experiences played a real part in shaping
who I am today.)
What the Book Explained About My Symptoms
This book actually explains the blurry-vision
symptom I used to experience. It's on page 47(Korean Version).
The author explains that many military training programs push recruits
through extreme hardship without first teaching them the underlying theory
behind building resilience—essentially throwing people into deep water and
expecting them to figure out how to swim on their own. Under this kind of
extreme stress, people often stop functioning normally: their thinking slows,
their memory falters, and their ability to make decisions breaks down. The
author describes dissociation as something like the mind hitting an emergency
exit button, cutting itself off entirely from what is happening in the present
moment. (p. 47)
The explanation continues on page 48:
The author cites a survey of highly experienced combat veterans:
sixty-five percent said there had been times when they simply couldn't remember
what had happened. And all but two of the 94 veterans interviewed said that, at
times, the world around them had looked like it was covered in a fog. (p. 48)
Why We Need to Talk About Stress, Not Just
Endure It
At the time, I never got any real help
figuring out how to deal with the stress I was under. I had no idea that what I
was experiencing was something that could actually be addressed—whether through
professional support or a structured program built around it. I think that's
part of why I ended up so overwhelmed, collapsing on my own with no one around
who really understood what was happening.
Looking back, I wasn't nearly as tough as I
thought I was. I had plenty of patience, but I didn't actually know how to
manage stress. Even now, I don't think Korea has enough resources teaching
people practical ways to cope with this kind of pressure. I think it would be
genuinely valuable if the members of our ThinkQbation group started sharing the
stress-management approaches that have worked for them.
