This week’s “Daily Journal” guest columnist is Donna Martinez, associate editor of Carolina Journal.

I’ve long been fascinated by the different ways people respond to change and the adversity it sometimes brings. When my dad — a man who quit school after eighth grade to help support the family — was laid off from his truck-driving job in his mid-50s, he reacted with dignity and resolve rather than shame or fear. I’ve never been more proud of him than the day he left for his first job interview in 20 years.

I think of his example when I encounter people who spew complaints about this country’s changing economy, trade policies, and the global marketplace in which we compete. Some are determined to see themselves as victims, despite living in the most prosperous country on earth and enjoying a lifestyle my dad couldn’t imagine while surviving on biscuits and potatoes during the Depression.

Losing a job is tough. Dad’s stomach was in knots the day he left the trucking yard for the last time. After a few months, he was earning a paycheck again and able to appreciate the door the layoff had opened, knowing it was an opportunity he never would have pursued otherwise.

My dad has a lot in common with the nearly 5,000 Pillowtex employees who lost their Kannapolis jobs in 2003. Many of them also walked out the door with a high school diploma or less on their resume. Some took advantage of retraining opportunities and acquired positions with growing industries. Others took Dad’s path and banked on their existing skills to find work. Some never found the way forward or upward.

I can’t explain why some of us rise to adversity’s challenge and others don’t. I also don’t know why some folks rely on themselves in tough times, and others wait for a solution to knock on the door. But I do know this phenomenon isn’t new. Candlestick makers and typewriter repairmen have confronted economic change, as have tobacco farmers, UNC-Chapel Hill employees, Pillowtex workers, and now, Hollywood writers.

It would be easy but shortsighted to allow the moving and sad stories associated with change to overshadow the importance of embracing free trade and technological innovation. But that’s exactly where we find our political discourse when we focus only on costs, not benefits. When the Kannapolis plant closed, an accusatory finger was pointed at NAFTA and GATT despite the many factors at play in the shutdown. Reporters rightly showed us the human face of the layoff, but the broader economic story was lost. As N.C. State University economics professor Mike Walden pointed out at the time, trade agreements saved Americans at least $19 billion per year in lower clothing costs. That’s a huge reservoir of cash available for other purchases, or for investment.

We’d better get used to the change that comes with a worldwide marketplace, but political rhetoric is moving us in the opposite direction. Some want to build an economic wall around the United States instead of fostering a nimble, self-reliant workforce. Look no further than the American auto industry. Costly union contracts, rising steel and crude oil prices, worldwide competition, and the prospect of more environmental regulation, have pushed Detroit’s costs up and its market share down. You don’t need a Ph.D. in economics to see that big-time change is coming, but when the inevitable happens, we’ll hear the usual complaints about how unfair things are, along with cries for Congress to “protect” the American worker.

That’s when my thoughts will return to my dad, who spent 60-plus years relying on his back and his work ethic for his livelihood. I’ll again be proud he didn’t expect someone else to “protect” his job. He depended on the man in the mirror.