I was recently asked to write an article of encouragement about building/regrowing resilience during COVID times. I then automatically thought about my attitude in life, and the sportsmanship/character I show in the soccer field and in my everyday actions.

As a defensive soccer player, your opponent will kick the soccer ball, sometimes landing straight in your face and feeling like a sucker punch, or even worse, leaving your face feeling numb. Thus, the ability to quickly turn your body around and recover quickly kicking the ball back like if nothing had ever happened is what to me means RESILIENCE.

It really is up to you how you perceive your COVID/LIFE experience. You might have lost a friend, family member, or your home during these last few weeks and your CHARACTER will never be the same. It will grow and flourish in strength as time passes by. Similar to lost soccer games, you gain momentum, experience and build on your strategy and inner strength.

More so, what has truly impacted my curiosity during our COVID stay is to further dive into character development. Jim, Kouzes, and Barry Posner delineate the importance of why Character matters in leadership (Source 1):

• Be careful of your thoughts, for your thoughts become your words;
• Be careful of your words, for your words become your deeds;
• Be careful of your deeds, for your deeds become your habits;
• Be careful of your habits; for your habits become you character;
• Be careful of your character, for your character becomes your destiny. 

In addition, while studies have shown that sports do enhance character development and further emphasizes sportsmanship and character to act symbiotically (Source 2), what do you do when sports and your favorite sport players are on pause during COVID 19? You become your own player, you take control of your life and run with it until you hit that goal.

Staying FOCUSED is presumably more important than anything during these times, and enhancing your global mindset is a key in your overarching success during post-COVID times. Who have you connected or networked with during these COVID times? With your neighbor? Or with someone who is educationally competent across the world or in a different state? If you haven’t, it is not too late. Remember that as we shift into a new normal,a digital normal -like an Herculean/Athena character , globalization might be your best friend. With this, my fellow readers, I leave you with this quote “The philosophy of pandemic is truly a philosophy for all peoples” (Source 3). It is not about YOU, but about WE, and WE wins games!

Sincerely,

Flor Esquivel-Benitez

1. Kouzes, J. and Posner, B.A.R.R.Y., 2005. Leadership development is character development. Leadership Excellence, 22(2), pp.6-7.Economopoulos, K.P., Sun, R., Garvey, E., Hogan, J. and Bazzarelli, A., 2014. Coaching and mentoring modern surgeons. The American College of Surgeons.
2. Omar-Fauzee, M.S., Nazarudin, M.N., Saputra, Y.M., Sutresna, N., Taweesuk, D., Chansem, W., Latif, R.A. and Geok, S.K., 2012. The strategies for character building through sports participation. International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 2(3), p.48.
3. Michael A. Peters (2020) Love and social distancing in the time of Covid-19: The philosophy and literature of pandemics, Educational Philosophy and Theory, DOI: 10.1080/00131857.2020.1750091