• The Mind: The Ultimate Survival Tool

    “If you were to be stranded on a deserted island, what would you bring?” Many people ponder this question and answer with things like food or matches. People with survival training may know of the “ten essentials” to take with them in the wilderness, one being a knife (Jenkins). However, many people don’t realize that their head is the number one thing to take to any survival situation. The mind is a powerful tool, and if used properly, it can multiply one’s chances to survive.

    According to Laurence Gonzales, who has studied survival for 30 years, one of the most important things a person can do in a survival situation is to realize that he is actually in such a situation and that he must save himself rather than rely on rescue. Without this mental realization, he cannot move on to surviving, and his only chance of survival will be through luck or having a competent person alongside him. He goes on to say that a survivor will also be an optimistic realist, one who believes that there exists a potential positive outcome but knows it may be very difficult to reach that result; he will see possibilities in even the direst of circumstances. In William Golding’s Lord of the Flies, the young boys displayed these preliminary survival steps when they realized they were stuck on an island and came to the conclusion that “[if] a ship comes near the island they may not notice us [the boys]” (41). They recognized that help would not simply come, and so they “set about…devising a way to be rescued” (Lord of the Flies: Plot Overview).

    After a person has made it through the first steps, his mind is then useful to analyze the situation and formulate a plan (Gonzales). Golding’s stranded schoolboys showed the former when they walked around the unfamiliar territory in order to be certain that they were stranded on an uninhabited island instead of on a beach near civilization. To do the latter, a person should quickly think of several strategies and determine which will be the best to use. A survivor will “imagine ‘what if’ situations and develop effective responses,” leaving few surprises if any to intimidate him (Band). Contemplating the consequences of each possible plan will allow him to decide which path to take in his journey to safety. It may seem simple enough to go through this thought process, but in high threat situations, Gonzales argues that a person will need a good combination of reason, to give him direction, and emotion, to give him a “power source” like determination, both of which are provided by the mind.

    Survivors must do anything necessary to live, no matter how extreme (Gonzales). If a person fails to go through with the only possible way, whether it is because of fear or other factors, he will have given up on survival and will likely not live. He must not underestimate himself yet he must keep a sense of realism; a true survivor will know what he is capable of doing and realize which risks to take (Gonzales). Life-or-death situations often challenge people to take risks, and in Aron Ralston’s case, accepting the challenge was the only way to make it out alive. Ralston’s hand was trapped under a boulder; he had exhausted his other options and had run out of water when he resolved that amputating his hand with a dull knife was what he must to do to escape (Jenkins). By taking that leap of faith, he managed to walk away with his life.

    To survive, a person must never give up, lest they lead themselves to certain death. He must not be demoralized by his shortcomings but rather live by Gonzales’ “final truth”: If a man is still alive, there is always more that can be done. If one plan fails, a survivor will find other possibilities. Before Ralston decided to cut off his own hand, he also tried chipping away at the boulder and moving the boulder, each with little to no success (Jenkins). When his plans did not work out, he tried again or modified them to determine if they were true failures; upon deciding they were, he moved on to the next plan rather than lose his determination (Jenkins). Like Ralston, survivors must know that adaptations are sometimes necessary (Gonzales). In fact, according to Peter Suedfelt, University of British Columbia’s professor emeritus of psychology, “beyond the fundamental will to survive, the foremost character trait of a survivor is intellectual flexibility” (qtd in Jenkins). In Golding’s Lord of the Flies, the schoolboys’ inflexibility was partly to blame when they were nearly unsuccessful in surviving; they were too mentally restricted to their assigned roles that none had considered taking over another’s job when it did not get done.

    Stress is also significant in survival. It can serve as a wake-up call signaling that something must be done. When under stress, the body prepares for action while mentally a person may feel motivated to strive for his best. However, stress may also be destructive, causing indecisiveness, anger, fatigue, carelessness, thoughts of death, and other potentially fatal symptoms. Therefore, it is important to be able to handle stress in survival situations. One obvious way to manage stress is to eliminate the cause, such as finding food if a person is worried about going hungry. If the stress isn’t that simple, a person should “hope for the best, [but] prepare for the worst” (Psychology of Survival). In doing so, his hope will allow him to avoid giving up while his preparation will give him confidence that he can manage even if his hopes do fall short. A person can also lessen the amount of stress he will feel by anticipating his fears and finding a way to “build confidence in [his] ability to function despite [them]” (Psychology of Survival).

    Perhaps the most crucial part of survival is having motivation. It is a powerful thing, but there are simple ways to find it. One way is to break up one’s attempts at survival into small, manageable goals. The whole process may seem intimidating and perhaps impossible, but when broken down, each goal may seem entirely feasible. Furthermore, success with one goal will inspire a person to move on to the next goal. Lauren Elder, for example, was the only survivor of a small plane crash on an icy peak 12,000 feet high. One of her arms was broken, and she was far from wearing appropriate climbing clothes. Despite it being a seemingly hopeless trek to civilization, she mustered the motivation to move on by thinking “only as far as the next big rock” (Gonzales). It is also important to praise one’s success, as it “keeps motivation high… prevents a lethal plunge into hopelessness… [and] provides relief from the unspeakable strain of a life-threatening situation” (Gonzales). When Elder made it down from the first pitch, she looked back up at it, thought, “Look what you’ve done,” and “gave a whoop that echoed down the silent pass” (qtd in Gonzales).

    Motivation is so important in survival because it gives a person a reason to take risks and avoid giving up. If a person does not have the will to live, he will likely not, and there are many ways he can strengthen his will, more so than simply having small goals. One would be for him to survive for someone else, whether that person is along for the survival journey or thousands of miles away. One survivor imagined the suffering his wife would go through if he gave up and died; another “hallucinated a beautiful companion” for whom he did everything (Gonzales). Perhaps the strongest motivator, however, is fear. Courtney Hope was pregnant when she was assaulted, and although she claims she would do anything to protect her now born son, she says, “I would still try to do everything that I could do [even] if my son’s life was not on the line. I would just have less fight in me…” She goes on to say that she was more afraid than she had ever been in her life and that it was most important factor in her survival. Her fear motivated her to find an opportunity to escape, and escape she did. In Golding’s Lord of the Flies, most of the boys lacked any motivating fear that might lead them towards survival; they were too comfortable in a land with the fun of hunting and the freedom of no adults. This is likely the leading factor contributing to their near failure to survive.

    Because of acceptance, thinking and planning, determination, stress, and motivation, the mind becomes the most essential tool for survival. While other tools may be useful in some situations, the mind is always necessary. Even people with survival training have died in life-or-death situations while many without training have lived. When Hope was asked if knowing some self defense technique would have helped her escape her assaulter, she told her interviewer that she did not believe so. She said, “…you will never know what [will be] on your mind until something does happen to you and you may not even be thinking about using the defense techniques.” In the words of Laurence Gonzales, “Everything you need is inside you already.”