Created and Called: Being Antifragile

This week, I have felt very fragile. Emotionally, physically, mentally, spiritually, and wholly fragile. As if just a small slip, a little pressure, or a tiny crack and I will break apart into hundreds of unrecognizable shards.

I sat in class this past week and listened to my neuroscience professor talk about fragility. Dr. Meszaros explained that “fragility is the characteristic of failing under stress.” And boy did this hit home. As I looked at my past weekend, all I could see was my failures. I was too stressed and snapped at my husband. I was too overwhelmed, so I didn’t study. I broke down in tears when my landlady asked if we could be more considerate at how much water we are using. I ate a whole Ben & Jerry’s ice cream one day because for a moment I figured giving up was the easiest decision. And more than one day the past week, I didn’t work out because I was tired. As I pondered on even the last 72 hours, all I could see were the times when I was fragile.

My professor then asked what anti-fragility meant.

“Strong!”

“Durable!”

“Robust!”

These were the words my classmates yelled out. And, though I didn’t think they were wrong, I felt their answers were incomplete. I knew there was something more to this concept. To be anti- something means to be completely opposite of it. And being weak is just one characteristic of the fragile... fragile things also break under stress…

“Something that gets stronger under stress,” I blurted out.

My professor looked at me and smiled, “well either you just divined that, or you looked ahead in the slides.” The class erupted in laughter. And the truth of his words was clear, I had not looked ahead, so it must have been divine inspiration. He continued sharing comparisons between fragile and anti-fragile systems, I will share some of these in a moment. But my heart was struck with the realization that the systems and creations of God are anti-fragile and in comparison, man-made systems are so fragile.

The systems and creations of man are so easy to fail under stress. But how could we expect them to do anything else? They are nothing more than frail mimics of the things of God. We see political empires fall year by year. We drop a glass, and it automatically shatters into pieces. Businesses are built and businesses go bankrupt every day. As humans, it is hard to see ourselves and our creations as anything by fragile. However, looking for answers, we can turn to the scriptures. In the very first chapter of the bible, God answers this worry for us. In Genesis 1: 27, we read “So God created man in His own image, in the image of God created He him; male and female created He them.” As I read this verse, I am not only affirmed that I am a created and crafted being of an Almighty God, but I feel comfort in knowing that I am created in His perfect image. And to me that means, that as a strive I can become more like Him. I can become less fragile. This idea is confirmed for me as I continue to read the scriptures. In Matthew 5:48, we are commanded to “be ye therefore perfect, even as your father which is in heaven is perfect.” If this is our purpose, then, it stands to reason, we must emulate Him in all ways, including becoming anti-fragile.

These two verses teach us the basis of everything we need to know about who we are in this life, we are called and created to become like God. To become anti-fragile. And God provided a way for us to do this through His Son, Jesus Christ.

But I don’t fully agree with my own analysis. I don’t think that it is not our job to become anti-fragile. I think that as a creation of God, we are already endowed with the capacity of being anti-fragile. This is not something we need to earn or to gain, it is something within ourselves we need to access. That as we give ourselves to our Savior and through the Atonement align ourselves with God, we are not earning our anti-fragility, but rather taking upon ourselves the birthright God created us to inherit.

I think it is pertinent to share three of the comparisons Dr. Meszaros shared with me, so that it can be completely clear what is fragile and what is not and who is the Creator and Patron of the anti-fragile.

No-Errors vs Perfection

o In a fragile system, few mistakes are made. And since so few are made, we do not have enough opportunity to learn from them and strengthen the system against future errors. This means that the mistakes that do happen are large and often fatal to the system.

o In an anti-fragile system, many mistakes are made, and those mistakes are learned from. This decreases the odds that any one mistake or any number of mistakes will lead to the collapse of the system. Now, I am not saying that God is a God of errors. But rather He is a God of learning. He created a system in which His children (us) are able to make mistakes daily, we are able to learn from those mistakes, and we are able to repent and change. This means that when bigger errors come along, it we don’t have to fail or collapse, but rather we have the experience and understanding to be able to calmly approach the mistake and through the Atonement of Christ fix the error and become more for tified against future mistakes. God’s plan for His children is a perfect one, not because we are perfect people who will make zero errors, but because He given us a chance to make errors in a safe way where we can learn and always come to Him for help.

Catastrophizing vs Uncertainty

o In a fragile system, it collapses when faced with uncertainty. The unknown is not only scary, but it is debilitating. It is a pessimistic system, one full of catastrophizing of every anxiety. Inevitably, not being able to fix a problem now or not being able to predict the future will lead to ultimate demise of a system that cannot cope, adapt, and stand against uncertainty.

o In an anti-fragile system, uncertainty is approached with faith and confidence. These systems are built upon the understanding that opposition is necessary in all things. That to understand certainty and knowledge, we must experience the unknown. This does not impair it though, as the system’s trust is in the Creator of the Universe who is the Author of science and the Master of miracles. His will shall be done.

Seeking Comfort vs Rising to Challenges

o In a fragile system, comfort is the goal. During this lecture, Dr. Meszaros made an off-handed comment saying, “comfort is a disease.” Once again, I began thinking about my experience with comfort. From an almost physical therapist’s perspective comfort causes lots of issues. Adaptive muscle shortening from sitting 10+ hours a day or staring at computers with a forward head. Cars, subways, buses etc. lead to less need for walking and the movement that keeps our hearts strong. So called “comfort food” like fried chicken, brownies, French fries lead to diabetes, high cholesterol, and heart disease. And many other modern comforts, that do amazing things for our civilization, lead to toxic comfort and in a quite literal way, diseases of the body. And as I thought about how this relates to our spiritual and emotional health, I realized it has the same effect. When we get too comfortable in any situation, we stop trying to grow. We stop challenging ourselves, our beliefs, our efforts, and ultimately this can lead to failure. At the discovery of a black swan, the scientists were conflicted the definition of a swan. To that point a swan was a white bird with a long neck, but this bird before them was black. This made them uncomfortable, and they were confronted with a choice to proclaim their determined definition as wrong or to deny what they saw. A system that is fragile collapses under scrutiny and challenge.

o In an antifragile system, challenges are expected and met without fear. An antifragile system is never too comfortable. They find their comfort in God, not in worldly luxury and pride. When reading the scriptures or listening to a sermon that causes discomfort within an antifragile person or challenges what they assume they know. They do not collapse, instead they study more and turn to God to reconcile their understanding. Sometimes this means accepting the new knowledge and sometimes it means disregarding it as untruth or misinterpretation, as long as this process is done with God by your side, either option can be good and righteous. Antifragile systems are expectant and ready to be faced with black swans. When their expectations are challenged, these systems are willing to put in the energy to reconcile their ideology and assumptions with new information and circumstances.

As another example, consider marriage (as a newlywed I just have to lol). Marriage is a gift that God has sustained for us. For those who include God in their marriage, making Him an equal creator of their happily ever after, it can be one of the most antifragile covenants we ever make. In this type of marriage, a lot of errors are made. Every day the partners are faced with forgiving each other and learning from the small bumps that come along the way. In this type of marriage “what if” isn’t a scary term, but the uncertainty of the future is outshined by the joy of the now. Faith and trust in God and your partner help you to face unknown with confidence. To make decisions together. In this type of marriage, you don’t fall into patterns of too much comfortability, but instead you strive every day to be better and do better. Your partner is always enough. But when your partner changes, or life circumstances change, or your emotions change in anyway an antifragile marriage doesn’t fail, it is able to grow. Being married I can tell you it is vital to be fully trusting and comfortable with your spouse, but as stresses and challenges come, ones that can challenge the bond between my husband and I, we don’t falter. We aren’t sitting idly by, we are ready to fight for one another and work to become closer together. A marriage built upon the principles of Christ is able to be stronger because it is emulating the anti-fragile love and connection God has with each of us.

This post is longer than I anticipated and in truth I could continue to drone on about this concept and how it fits into every aspect of our lives. But I am content to let your own minds and imaginations to find ways to apply anti-fragility to the systems and creations in your life. I would like to end this by reminding you that you are created and called to be antifragile. That means that antifragility is an innate part of our divine nature as children of God. But just like everything in this life, it is our agency that is the limiting factor in our ability to utilize it. We must choose to emulate our Heavenly Father; accessing His power to give us the strength to overcome the fragility of this temporal existence and with eternal perspective rise toward antifragility.

****edit: p.s. If you need to proof of your own antifragility, just look at the scars on your skin. Those are places where you were put under a stress your body broke under, but that isn’t the end of the story. Your skin wove itself back together stronger, thicker, and you are whole and complete still. Broken bones heal, your muscles get larger when you work them beyond “capacity”, and your soul also responds to stress in the same way. Antifragility is a characteristic of every cell of your body and every fiber of your being ❤️