Are You a Survivor?

Many of our readers have made it through difficult times and are, to some degree at least, survivors. Today’s Asian Americans come from cultures that have endured famines, wars, purges, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, panics, epidemics–as have people from other parts of the world. Their immigrant ancestors had severe challenges to surmount after coming to America, too.

A highly popular television series, Survivor, puts its competitors into primitive environments and has them vie, individually and as part of teams, in contests of strength, guile, agility, endurance, speed, etc. Meanwhile, they have to scratch out the necessities of life. Some succeed. Some fail. The last one not eliminated wins the grand prize.

Paul Draker’s exciting and dramatic new adventure novel, New Year Island, examines the question of what qualities are crucial to successful survival under very unusual conditions. It made me wonder to what degree these qualities might be important in our everyday lives.

Draker’s book presents a Survivor-like competition on an isolated island. Rough contests and harsh conditions face a selected group of people who earlier in their lives had survived unusual challenges; the novel’s heroine was entombed for several days during an earthquake when seven years old, being orphaned by the incident. The competitors are wholly dependent for food and water on those running this “reality show” competition. The contests are cruelly designed to heighten antagonisms between the teams and among the individuals. The situation turns deadly.

Early on, novelist Draker has a lecturer tell us what characteristics psychologists have found to be common among the exceptional one-tenth who survive extraordinary, life-or-death situations:

1. WILL TO LIVE – their survival “is as much mental as physical.”
2. RESILIENCE – they are flexible in the face of adversity.
3. SELF-CONFIDENCE – they feel no need to prove anything to anybody.
4. PLAYFUL CURIOSITY – they experiment, break rules, test limits.
5. ALERTNESS – they appraise changing situations rapidly and read people well.
6. UNPREDICTABILITY – they can combine opposing characteristics for flexibility and surprise.
7. EMPATHY – they care about others without being paralyzed by concern.
8. INTUITION – they trust their feelings, their instincts.
9. SYNERGY – they combine dissimilar elements to make hard problems easy.
10. SPIRITUALITY – they have faith and believe they will survive.

How can these attributes contribute to our lives outside of crises?

“Will to live” is the basic version of what the French call joie de vivre, an exuberant, energetic appreciation of the gift of life, a gift that comes with an expiration date unknown to us. We enjoy life fully, while we can.

Resilience helps us cope with ups and downs, twists and turns…at work, at play, at home. We “don’t sweat the small stuff,” don’t fuss about minor matters. We accept that life is change. Defeat is temporary.

Self-confidence fuels our moving forward. It attracts others to us, as long as we do not take it so far as to become smug or over-confident. We succeed partly because we believe we can.

Playfulness adds to our enjoyment of life and to the enjoyment felt by those with whom we interact, helping us to attract allies. Much of life has elements of the games we played as children. Competition in business or school or even in love can be seen as a game, and we can take an attitude of “win some, lose some” to temper our elation at winning or our dejection at losing. Participation in sports as kids helps prepare us for the game of being grown-ups. Childlike curiosity can allow us to see what the overly-adult miss.

We must be alert. “Don’t fall asleep at the switch.” We need to keep our “heads up,” aware of our environment and the people around us. Opportunity may knock, but we must be listening to hear it. Many problems can be prevented by prudent early action.

“Unpredictability”? This surprised me. What the author meant was that we should not bring the same approach to all our situations. We need to be able to be rational or emotional, sweet or acerbic, soft or firm, even gentle or rough, as appropriate. “When you are the hammer, strike. When you are the anvil, bear.” Though being unpredictable may at times annoy your allies, it can serve to confound your enemies. Varying your style can reveal new options to you. If your only approach is to hammer, you will misjudge all your problems to be nails.

Empathy is not just nice, it is a component of success. Our consideration for the feelings of others will often be returned through their consideration for us. You get what you give. Teamwork is fostered, allies gained and maintained. Our plans will be more realistic. Shared success is more likely and more valuable than individualistic failure.

Intuition lets us know more than we can prove. Can you trust him? Is she a true friend? “Go with your gut” has merit, although one needs to apply it cautiously. The heart has reasons the mind cannot grasp. However, if we get solid information that contradicts our gut feelings, it is time to reconsider. When my engagement was temporarily suspended by my fiancée, I should have guessed that our subsequent marriage would fail, as it eventually did. A more intuitive person would have backed out and saved himself many wasted years.

Synergy occurs when the combination of two things produces results much greater than the simple sum of the two would predict. When the two of you do more than “fill gaps,” you have synergy. When each improves and reinforces the other, this pairing out-performs prediction.

Spirituality has been found helpful, often crucial, in sustaining those in terrible situations. In our daily lives, a belief in the benevolence of the universe or a faith in the category_idance of a Supreme Being helps propel us through adversity and contributes to confidence, resilience, empathy, and enjoyment of life. Besides, God might just give us a helping hand. The great French scientist Blaise Pascal argued, in ”Pascal’s Wager,“ that he was better off believing in God than not, regardless of whether God actually exists.

You can be a survivor, even a thriver. Skills that have gotten you this far can be honed to take you farther still. Play on!

Dr. Cooper is a retired scientist, now a writer, tutor, book author and writing coach. His first book, Ting and I: A Memoir of Love, Courage and Devotion, was published by Outskirts Press and is available from Outskirts, Amazon, and Barnes and Noble, in paperback and ebook formats, as is a memoir he co-authored, The Shield of Gold, and a memoir he edited, High Shoes and Bloomers. On Twitter, he is @douglaswcooper. His blog is http://douglaswinslowcooper.blogspot.com.