We know how to stay strong. But should we always?

 There are times when it is necessary to hold on, and there are times when we have to let go. Both require strength.

Is staying strong something that the older generation understood better than we do? Maybe.

But while they can teach us something about grit, perseverance and getting back up, there is another kind of strength worth learning too: knowing what deserves our endurance and when it is time to let go.

My father was a schoolteacher and cricket coach whose life changed after an accident left him with severe burns across much of his body and a face that was hardly recognisable.

Somehow, he got back up, faced the world, and returned to work.

I have spent years wondering how.

Strength isn’t it? Or resilience? You got on with life. You went to work. You provided for your family. Life could knock you sideways, but somehow, you found your feet again.

The older I get, though, the more I think about what resilience is and wonder if it is really as simple as that.

My father had children who needed him, a classroom to return to, cricket to coach and a life in which he still mattered. His job as a government schoolteacher also gave him some security and a route back to work.

Maybe he got up because he still had enough reasons to.

I see something of him in a friend who once invested heavily in a business, lost his business partner along the way, and found himself carrying the weight of considerable debt on his own.

And the man rebuilt his life.

Today, he works extraordinary hours running his business. People often misunderstand his focus and energy, to which he quips: “If you invested this much money in a business, wouldn’t you work 20 hours a day managing it?”

Fair point.

I later realised that his drive wasn’t only about himself. Other people’s livelihoods, especially those of the younger generation who are just stepping into the “real world”, depended on that business too. This became another strong reason for him to keep going.

Maybe that’s what I admire about both men. I don’t remember my father ever calling himself resilient, and my friend doesn’t seem particularly interested in the label either. They simply found their reasons to keep going.

But my own life has made me question another side of being strong.

There were years when strength meant staying and supporting someone I loved through addiction. Later, it meant accepting that a relationship of almost two decades had reached its end.

Then came redundancy right in the middle of an AI transformation project. There was some irony in building for the future, only to discover I wasn’t going to be a part of it.

During a conversation with a friend recently, Bob Dylan’s “Like a Rolling Stone” came to mind and it began sounding different to me. I had heard it countless times, but “How does it feel?” suddenly felt like a rather personal question.

Because when the roles, relationships and routines that once told us who we were begin to disappear, what exactly are we supposed to hold on to?

Can it be the old and familiar version of ourselves and the life we’ve built that comes with it?

Perhaps that is why we “tahan”, or “endure”.

And goodness! Don’t we Malaysians “tahan” very well.

We “tahan” or stay because people depend on us. Because responsibilities don’t disappear when we’re tired or sometimes the thing we’re fighting for genuinely deserves another chance.

But let’s admit to something else. Sometimes we “tahan” because we worry about what people will think.

The marriage must look fine. The career must look successful. The finances must look under control. People’s opinions still matter, even in modern Malaysia.

There is dignity in strength and resilience. I learned that from my father, and I see it in my friend.

But somewhere along the way, I also learned that resilience isn’t measured by how long we can remain strong inside something painful.

Nobody gets a medal for staying or enduring the longest.

When I think about my father now, I no longer admire him simply because he endured what happened to him.

His old life didn’t magically return after the accident. He found reasons to build a life around what remained.

So did my friend, who rebuilt his business from zero to number one in its field. He found reasons bigger than himself.

There is something worth passing down.

To a younger generation growing up with language around mental health, boundaries and knowing when to walk away, I would add one thing: learn how to get back up too.

Find your reasons. What gives you purpose? Sometimes it is because there are people who depend on you. Sometimes it is work.

It is something you believe in or is it simply the life you still want to build.

And for those of us who have been raised to believe strength means holding everything together, there is something we can learn from them too.

Being strong doesn’t always mean staying, it’s also knowing when endurance has served its purpose.

Maybe resilience isn’t about how much we can “tahan” after all. It’s knowing what deserves our perseverance, what is worth rebuilding, and what we finally need to let go of. - FMT

The views expressed are those of the writer and do not necessarily reflect those of MMKtT.