At What Point Does Survival Become Living?

Imagine going on a hike along the side of a mountain. The trail is cleared, the safety rails are installed, and on one side the mountain shoots upwards with rocks and trees, and on the other side is a huge ravine plunging dozens of feet down to a beautiful valley below. Where is your attention? Are you hugging the side of the mountain and clinging for dear life? Or do you trust that precautions you’ve taken are enough to look up and enjoy the view? How much of the hike do you spend surviving it instead of enjoying it?  

Survival is organically built into us. It’s in our nature and what has kept us alive for eons. We, as humans, have that will to survive (who is singing Eye of the Tiger now?). It’s how we learn and avoid dangers and continue living for one more day. Even now there are people all over the world whose only concern for the day is to make it through to the next. You probably know of some. You may be one, someone who is struggling for the day. If so, I’m sorry you are there – and I hear you. Whether the fight to survive is financial, physical, medical, emotional, or simply finding enough to eat… the struggle truly is real. I’ve lived that. Fighting for another day – or not fighting… I’ve been there too.

But making it to another day, and actually living in the day you have, are not necessarily the same thing. It took me almost a decade to figure that one out.

For years I lived in constant fear. Fear of the unknown. Terrified of what could happen, of what might happen, of what was just around the corner. I thought I was living. I was going to work, taking care of my family and home. I was doing all the things. I even had fun. I laughed, had friends, and made memories. I was living, right? Only I wasn’t. I seemed fine on the outside and even convinced myself at times that I was fine on the inside too. I looked like everyone else. My daily life looked like most people’s. My friends and family and interactions were no different than anyone else I knew.

But no one saw what was going on inside my head. I was nowhere near calm or relaxed inside. No one could see the tangle of emotions and thoughts constantly raging around like fighting roosters in my brain. It constantly swirled with doubts, worry, fears, the what-ifs and all the scenarios of what to predict, so that I could prevent. I couldn’t shut it off. Even knowing how precious life and time are, I couldn’t fully enjoy the moment. To an extent I was – but my mind was never at peace.

Life had taught me what was beyond my control the hard way. Trust me, I was certain about this one. That’s what terrified me so; I knew just how little was within my grasp to help make the best outcome possible. I could only do or prevent so much… and then there was what was beyond that reach.

That vastness was my nightmare. I lived there in my head. Then I began to realize how that wasn’t exactly a bad thing.

The unknown was scary, yes, but it could also be incredible. I had forgotten that in the drowning of life being thrown at me.

I started to lean into that realization that I can be cautious and still be prepare, but if I accept there are things beyond my control, then don’t I logically also have to accept that I cannot be responsible for what is beyond my control either. That thought was freeing.

Once I got my head wrapped around that truth, the doors opened and the world blossomed. If I can’t control what is beyond me, then I’m off the hook essentially. Once I have genuinely done all I know to do, then I no longer feel that responsibility for what is outside of my control; and therefore, I’m able to enjoy the moment a little more. It took some time for this to sink in enough before I really felt the release. But once it did, and I learned how to release that control, that worry and fear, it began to lift.

I still overthink scenarios and possibilities – but my mind does not live there anymore. This freed up my mind from worry, concern and prevention. Instead of worrying about the future, I was able to start imagining the possibilities and envisioning the future I wanted to create. Once I began filling my mind with a future that I wanted again, instead of the future I feared, that fear didn’t have the same space to take up. The more the future I wanted took up space, the more I started to see it trickle into my daily life and how I interacted with the world around me.

I had stopped merely surviving, and was fully living in the day I was currently in.

Not because life became safer or things stopped happening to me. Life continued and things still don’t turn out the way I want them to. It’s just easier to handle when I didn’t already feel beaten down by life. I had taken back control of the fight, by not fighting what I couldn’t control anymore.

I stopped allowing what I couldn’t control to completely control me.

Are you living a full life, or are you simply surviving? When you imagine what’s to come, how much space belongs to what you fear – how much space have you left for the hope of what might be possible?