“That which does not kill, only strengthens” is nonsense. Numerous forces destroy people leaving them alive but permanently weak and miserable until they die. Survival is not enough. The correct expression is, “that which does not destroy, only strengthens.” Although more logical, it leaves undefined things that do not destroy (stressors), what is not destroyed (stressed) and what is strengthened. Does the expression imply direct connections between stressors, the stressed and resulting strengthening? Examples are recovery of stressed but not destroyed body tissue, finances and relationships. What if parts of a person’s life are actually destroyed but the whole person becomes stronger by compensating mechanisms and use of alternatives? It’s complicated.
It is useful to break complex phenomena into discrete understandable parts arranged on spreadsheets. The most familiar are numeric spreadsheets like financial balance sheets. They can be incomprehensibly complex but the basic concepts are not. They are collections of numbers and ridged mathematical relationships between them used to calculate outcomes called bottom lines. Bottom lines let one know where they are today and might be in the future.
My health is a complex phenomenon that I cannot break down into numbers and calculate precise numeric bottom lines on a spreadsheet. However, I can identify things that I know affect my health. They are not discrete and the relationships between them are complex, fluid and individual-specific. It is not possible or necessary for me to assign numbers or rigid relationships between them. It is only necessary for me to know what they are and what their effects are. A pseudo-spreadsheet can be made up of things with positive, negative or neutral effects and how they affect the bottom lines of my health.
