What Is Survival?

Every morning we roll out of bed and let out a big yawn, proceed to the bathroom to let out a little bit of yesterday, and then we tackle our day head on. Sometimes things come up that changes our daily routines greatly. You may have a flat tire or the water is out at your house. Maybe there was news on the TV that a widespread pandemic is taking over the world or there was a tornado filled with vicious man eating sharks that touched down in Miami. No matter what we are doing we are always in survival mode. We are ready to react. Our minds go into instinctive survival mode to overcome and persevere. Adrenaline rushes through our bodies and we suddenly have the strength to lift a car. You all of a sudden have the guts to jump from a bridge into the river below to evade the angry mob that’s on a rampage and destroying everything in sight. Our instinct is to survive.

The Rules for survival never change,  Whether you’re in a desert or in an arena.

-Bear Grylls

So what is survival exactly? Well, the definition of survival is the act to exist or continue living. But aside from the actual and factual definition, survival in a whole, is pretty much the same today as it was a million years ago. Just easier. If you think about it, we “hunt” for our meat at the butcher shop and “forage” for our veggies in the produce section of the super market. Our shelters are our homes, cars are our horses, and the stove is the fire we cook over every night.


If we striped away everything that makes us humans comfortable and everything that made it easy, it would still be the exact same survival as our ancestors did many moons ago. Survival isn’t easy when you’re not comfortable. It wears a man down and beats him into a pulp. But, we are built to survive. Learning to survive is like having really great insurance. You may not always use it, but you’re protected once you enter into a worst case scenario. 


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