Ramses had once believed resilience was a trait reserved for the fortunate—those born with an unshakable core of strength, something he had always felt was out of his reach. But as he stood on the fragile edge between his old life and the new one he was slowly building, Ramses realized that resilience wasn't something you were born with. It was something you built. Day by day. Moment by moment. And that's exactly what he was doing, whether he saw it or not.
Every morning, Ramses rolled out a thin yoga mat on the cold floor of his apartment. His body felt stiff, like it hadn't been used in years, which in some ways, it hadn't. His muscles ached from the previous day's workout, but he refused to let that stop him. This was a battle that no one else could fight for him. He had to fight for himself, even when every part of him screamed to give up. His breath was shallow at first, a clear sign of the tension he carried with him, but slowly, like a rusted engine beginning to turn over, his body began to cooperate.
His initial stretches were slow and deliberate. The soreness in his legs screamed at him, telling him to stop, to go back to bed and pull the covers over his head like he used to. But he had made a decision—not today. His body didn't belong to his past self anymore. His body was his future. His body was his path forward.
"Just one more rep," he whispered under his breath, repeating the mantra with every push-up, every squat, every movement. It wasn't a dramatic internal battle; it was just a small, quiet fight against inertia. Against stagnation. And as simple as it seemed, that act of consistency, of showing up, was the foundation of resilience.
By the third week, Ramses could feel a noticeable difference. His body had begun to feel less like a prison and more like a vessel capable of doing something worthwhile. The fatigue that had once clung to him like a shadow began to dissipate. He still wasn't in peak shape—far from it—but his energy levels were higher, his posture straighter, his muscles stronger. It was as if every drop of sweat that poured from him was a tiny brick being added to the wall of resilience he was building. Every movement was a declaration that he wasn't going to let the world's silence, or his own doubts, stop him.
But resilience wasn't always about moving forward smoothly. It wasn't about a steady incline. Ramses knew that all too well.
There were mornings, especially when he woke up in the middle of the night, feeling the weight of the stillness pressing down on him like an invisible force, that he struggled to get out of bed. On those days, the doubts came rushing back, faster than he could chase them away. What's the point of all this? Why bother when there's no one to see it? No one even cares.
It was easy to let the quiet, frozen world overwhelm him, to let the absence of anything, the absence of everyone, convince him that nothing mattered. On those mornings, the very idea of going through his routine felt impossible. The weight of apathy clung to his mind, and there were times when he questioned if any of this effort was worth it. The world was still frozen. He was still alone.
But on those days, Ramses understood a vital truth: resilience wasn't about avoiding the dark moments. It was about facing them. It was about pushing through the moments of doubt and fear, not because he had all the answers, but because he knew that staying still would mean being consumed by those doubts.
The days were long, but Ramses stuck to his rituals. Meditation had become another pillar of his routine, though it had been hard to develop at first. Sitting with his own thoughts without distractions was terrifying in a way. It felt like being alone with a thousand demons, each one whispering about his past failures, his missed opportunities, and his shortcomings. But slowly, he began to quiet them. Slowly, he began to let those thoughts pass him by, like clouds in the sky. Some days, he felt like a student, learning for the first time how to sit with his emotions without judgment. Other days, he felt as though he was fighting the very essence of his being just to breathe without fear.
"Sit with the discomfort," he told himself in those moments when anxiety gripped his chest, making it hard to breathe. "Let it be."
His meditation wasn't perfect. It wasn't always a peaceful, flowing experience. It was a struggle, a reminder that growing strong wasn't easy. But in the process, Ramses realized that resilience wasn't about perfection. It was about showing up, even when the mind screamed for him to run away.
Books, too, became a lifeline for him. Ramses started reading voraciously, not just to pass time, but to rebuild his mindset from the ground up. He read everything he could get his hands on—philosophy, psychology, self-help. In the isolation of the frozen world, he found himself devouring the words of thinkers who had also experienced profound loss, grief, and struggle. The writings of Stoic philosophers like Marcus Aurelius became his comfort. They taught him the art of focusing only on what he could control and letting go of the rest.
"The obstacle is the way," one quote reminded him. Every obstacle, every setback, was a chance for him to become something greater, stronger, more capable.
It wasn't just about reading, though. Ramses was determined to apply the lessons he was learning. Every day, he pushed himself further out of his comfort zone. If he woke up feeling lazy, he would force himself into his workout routine anyway. He began to set small, achievable goals for himself—sometimes they were physical, like doing an extra set of sit-ups, sometimes they were mental, like reading a chapter of a book or meditating for five minutes longer. These were victories, small as they were, but they mattered. They were evidence that he was making progress.
Even with his body becoming stronger, Ramses still struggled with the mental weight of the world. The silence of the world weighed on him. He missed human contact, even the trivial interactions—the smiles of strangers, the sounds of people walking by, the laughter of friends. He longed for connection. The days spent completely alone were lonely, even for someone like him who had always felt like an outsider. But in this silence, Ramses also began to realize something profound. The world might have been frozen, but it wasn't the world that needed to change. It was him.
Art became another unexpected outlet for him. He had never considered himself artistic, but one day while exploring the nearby art museum, he was struck by a painting. It depicted a ship in the middle of a violent storm, crashing waves pounding against it. But the ship didn't sink. It pressed forward, battling the elements with defiance. Ramses stood in front of the painting for what felt like hours, entranced by the violent beauty of it. That ship, fighting against the storm, reminded him so much of his own journey—of the struggle, the pain, but also the defiance. The refusal to go under.
That painting sparked something in him. He returned to his apartment that evening and pulled out the scraps of paper and charcoal he had found in a nearby store. He began to sketch. At first, it was rudimentary, simple shapes and lines. But with every stroke of the charcoal, Ramses felt a sense of release, as though his soul was speaking through his hands. Art became a silent companion, a form of self-expression in a world that had no other voice.
His journey wasn't easy. There were still days when the weight of loneliness and self-doubt felt too much to bear. But on those days, Ramses remembered the ship in the storm. The waves were high, the storm was fierce, but the ship was still fighting. It wasn't about being perfect. It was about continuing to move forward.
By the end of this chapter in his journey, Ramses realized that resilience wasn't about pretending to be unbreakable. It was about accepting that you would break. But you'd also pick yourself up, again and again. Each time, stronger. Each time, more capable of facing the world, whatever it threw at you.
And so, Ramses kept walking the road to resilience, step by step, knowing that the road would never be smooth. But that didn't matter. He wasn't looking for perfection. He was looking for progress. And that, slowly but surely, was what he was finding.