It's a complete awareness at all times in your life, but it's also an extraordinary resiliency. It's knowing the ultimate Truth that life is difficult – when it rains, it avalanches – and the most important tools you have are actually within.

It's also the realization that when you cry, you cry alone. It's a truth that when the bottom falls out from your life, you must roll up your sleeves and face it head on – there are no shortcuts, and yet you are silently expected to be resourceful. It's resisting the temptation to outsource your care and survival the way most folks are conditioned to do at a frightening degree. It's the drive to rise above the rest although they may be like the proverbial Grasshoppers in the Aesop's Fable – and you're busy building your little dirt tunnels wondering if it really pays to be an Ant.