Editor’s Note

By Karolina Grzeszczuk

I marvel at people who have gone through serious changes and hardships, such as losing the only the job they have known due to downsizing or leaving their country of origin to “start from scratch” in a different socio-cultural environment. How does a person remain positive throughout such turmoil?

When my parents made the decision to flee Socialist Poland with their 5-year-old daughter in tow, they faced an uncertain future, abandoning their entire support network. My parents have spoken to me about their fears during that tumultuous time: What if no one understood what they were trying to say? What if they could not find a job? What if they had led us into a life of abject poverty?

Though fear and stress were present, so were hope, patience and humour. To this day, when my father is asked how he is, he usually responds with, “Amazing!” He is not being facetious or disingenuous – he is simply choosing to focus on the positive. I encountered Martin Seligman’s work on positive psychology for the first time while working on this issue of Careering and can see how living the Good Life, the Meaningful Life and the Pleasant Life would resonate with people like my dad.

While working on my first issue of Careering, I tried to keep all of this in mind. When I was not fretting about deadlines, word limits and all of the tiny details that can bog us down at work and in life, I reminded myself how grateful I was to have been given the opportunity to work with excellent writers and to have the strong support network of reviewers and CERIC staff to help bring this issue on “resilience” to you. You may also notice that this issue of Careering brings you a fresh new cover design, marking the magazine’s three-year anniversary and a new Editor!