What an Old Pickup Truck Can Teach Us About Resilience

There are vehicles that are bought to make a statement.

And then there are vehicles bought because somebody has work to do.

My Tata Xenon double-cab belongs firmly in the second category.

It has spent a good part of its life around construction sites, carrying tools, materials, equipment and occasionally things that probably deserved a slightly more serious discussion about weight limits.

It has travelled on good roads, bad roads, dusty roads and roads that make you wonder whether calling them roads is an act of excessive optimism.

Yet it keeps showing up.

That is what I like about it.

Construction is not particularly kind to machinery. A pickup working around construction sites is not spending its days cruising on perfect tarmac. There is mud, dust, stones, potholes, steep climbs and the occasional trench appearing exactly where you thought you were going to drive.

The Xenon has experienced most of these.

Sometimes it complains.

Sometimes a warning light appears with impeccable timing.

Sometimes it needs repairs.

But after a little attention, it goes back to work.

And perhaps that is where the old pickup has taught me something about resilience.

We often imagine resilient people as those who never break down.

I don't think that is true.

Resilient people break down too.

They get tired.

They make mistakes.

They have difficult seasons.

They sometimes need to stop and repair themselves.

The difference is that they eventually get moving again.

An old pickup doesn't become valuable because nothing ever goes wrong with it. It becomes valuable because when something does go wrong, you fix it and put it back to work.

There is another lesson in those scratches.

They are evidence of use.

The dents, worn parts and accumulated dust are not necessarily signs that the vehicle has failed. They are evidence that it has been working.

People accumulate scratches too.

A failed business.

A difficult relationship.

A financial setback.

A project that went badly.

A decision we wish we could revisit.

Life leaves marks.

But perhaps scars are not always evidence of failure.

Sometimes they are simply proof that you were in the game long enough to get hurt.

Construction has taught me another thing: the road does not have to be perfect for you to make progress.

Sometimes you simply have to engage four-wheel drive, slow down and keep moving.

Life is much the same.

We spend a lot of time waiting for better conditions.

When the economy improves.

When the business pays.

When we have more money.

When things settle down.

When everything finally makes sense.

But perfect conditions have a rather irritating habit of never arriving.

Sometimes you have to work with the road you have.

The same is true of people.

You don't have to be perfect to be useful.

You don't have to be new to have value.

You don't have to feel particularly motivated every morning.

Sometimes resilience is remarkably ordinary.

It is waking up.

Fixing what is broken.

Loading the vehicle.

Going to the site.

Doing the work.

And showing up again tomorrow.

That old Tata Xenon has probably taught me more about resilience than I expected from a pickup.

It has reminded me that the goal is not to avoid difficult roads.

It is to become capable of travelling them.

There will be potholes.

There will be steep climbs.

There will be breakdowns.

And occasionally, there will be days when you wonder why you didn't choose a quieter life involving nothing more complicated than feeding chickens.

But you keep going.

Because sometimes resilience is simply this:

Get repaired. Carry the load. And keep moving.