Sisu — The Finnish word for the strength that shows up only when everything is gone.

Two hundred days of darkness a year. Forty below in winter. Russia next door. The Finns had to invent a word for the strength that shows up only when everything is gone — and they named it sisu. Sisu is not grit. Not resilience. Not courage. It is, specifically, the reserve you did not know you had — the second wind that arrives after the first wind ends. This page is its working bench, plus the w