Are You Living or Merely Surviving?
During the hunter-gatherer days, our forefathers were only striving to survive. From hunting, to fighting, you name it. All done out of fear of not perishing or losing out. They weren’t known to connect as much as we do now. No digital devices, telephones, no social media…
But now, everything has changed. We’ve become enlightened enough to understand that we shouldn’t be fearful of so many of these things our forefathers were afraid of. Some of us are lucky enough to have shelter over our heads, food to eat, games and movies for entertainment, internet connectivity, and social media platforms for connecting with other people.
Yet, we still act like we’re merely surviving.
Scathing for food, hunting for a job that doesn’t serve our inner beings, adopting and exhibiting several queer habits all in the bid not to perish or lose out. As though we’re constantly in a competition; of either who’s the strongest, the richest, the mightiest, or finest — survival of the fittest conquest if you like.
Which to me, now, doesn’t make any sense.
There are crystal clear differences between surviving and living. And it takes acknowledging what they each entail to determine whether you’re living or merely surviving as our forefathers did.
They are:
You’re surviving over living when you keep doing things that aren’t aligned with your true being.
Overindulgent behaviors like overeating, oversleeping, too much entertainment like clubbing 247, chatting online 247, video games etcetera.
Agreed, certain difficult or unplanned situations call for these behaviors, but overdoing them on a daily, weekly, monthly basis, could just be a short-term coping strategy to something you’d rather end. And that’s a sign of being in a survival mode over the living.
Living, on the other hand, requires you to acknowledge the situation and seek out a better solution for it. Which might appear boring or long to the rest of us.
- Solutions like solitude. Sitting on our own to find out where the issue is from or what it is even.
- Seeking personal or professional help wisely — I included ‘wisely’ because overdoing it is overindulgence on its own. When you seek help, you’re already certain it’s something you couldn’t have done on your own alone. At that point, even a piece of advice or therapy session would do to help you pull through .
Not being afraid to hold back from overindulging in all these is where the strength lies. Particularly when those habits are the new norm. They make you feel like you aren’t living life accordingly. But when you feel this way ask yourself; who am I living for? me or other people? And use your response to conquer that fear — however slowly.
You’re surviving when you pick up traits that let you off the hook for a while
Traits such as tattoos, drinking, obsessiveness in something. Perhaps you want to form a “hardie” so you smoke and get fierce tattoos, drink and smoke up a chimney although deep down, you’re a softie whose personality doesn’t match such.
This is similar to the first point. Survival mode lets us pick up unhealthy characteristics that lets us off the hook easily.
This is also when you see yourself put up defensive traits all the time.
It’s probably what you learned to do from your immediate family. From how you block people who try to stress you, scream at them, avert love and/ or not give it, stonewall once you perceive disagreement, to withdrawing when you’re being looked down on.
These might be traits that you should exhibit when the desperate need for them arises. But when you show them on a regular, without any stringent need to, you might just be in a constant survival mode.
But living, on the other hand, is being vulnerable and not being afraid to show that you are. Accepting that every relationship comes with its ups and downs. Processing difficult emotions that arise due to disagreements. And healthily, discussing them and move forward.
You’re not living when you still brawl over the little things; things you already have in abundance
Remember the analogy of our forefathers. They fought for food, light, water, shelter, you name it.
Whereas for most of us, we are lucky to some extent. We have food to eat, the internet to browse with, family to make us feel protected.
Yet, we act like we don’t.
- We still scathe around brutally for food. We panic buy.
- We still fight to get into relationships. We panic love.
- We still battle with ourselves when we are alone. We panic-befriend people.
Everything is in panic mode. Survival mode. We don’t want to lose out on the house, friend, spouse, child-bearing time, and other life endowments.
So much so, we forget the ones we already have.
We forget that we have ourselves whom we can trust will make it and put in efforts to. We forget we have God who’s omnipotent come what may. We forget we have genuine loved ones (even if only one) who would at least show up for us if anything bad happened.
What are you so afraid of that you can’t seem to stop panicking about everything? Conquer that fear and liberate yourself from leaving this world not achieving anything. Because guess what, those things you fought hard for remain here and gets taken over by somebody else.
Living is in understanding that nothing on earth belongs to us. We came in naked and will go back without anything. Everything is vanity. You will lose some and get some. Not everything fought for is received and sometimes the things we don’t fight for often comes to us quickly.
Relax. Chill.
Surviving is not doing what we love but instead doing what would fetch us only money
The biggest purpose in life is doing something that makes you feel good on the inside. Regardless of whether you’re rich or famous doing so or not.
These include not getting into a job you hate. A job that fetches you no satisfaction.
Do you know the worst thing that can happen to you is staying where you don’t grow? Mentally or otherwise. Just stagnant, infuriated, and going with the flow.
It also includes doing any and everything to get money. Forgetting that there should be a greater purpose to everything you give your time to.
Learn to refrain from the most insatiable urge because it’s a hollow dream that never comes true. The more money you pursue the more money you need.
The fear of having more equals the fear of losing them.
But when you set a goal and have a purpose for it, it becomes easier and better to be grateful when you accomplish them. Or better still analyze why you didn’t. That’s living.
Surviving is disallowing ourselves from feeling or hurting
As human beings, we were created to have feelings and emotions. Cry when we hurt, bleed when we injure ourselves, suffer from heartbreaks due to bad breakups, be depressed when we have long struggles, have sexual urges, and mourn when we lose our loved ones.
Now, when you deny yourself of these emotions and put up a front that says, ‘I’m good’ when you’re not, or ‘I’m strong’ when you’re not. You’re only surviving and not living.
Why?
Because you’re doing so to cheat yourself and please others. For whatever reasons best known to you.
This is not to say you shouldn’t practice or exercise stoicism from time to time. A healthy dose of it is allowed. But denying yourself the natural prowess to express your true feelings or emotions is cowardice and killing yourself slowly.
Why again?
Because nobody has it all together. We are merely living/surviving. Everyone has got one issue or another we’re not telling others.
But that’s the essence of having trusted friends, loved ones, spouse, or colleagues you can talk to you. Or even strangers (because they come through sometimes). Find someone you can talk to or fully express yourself to. And then take your time healing while moving forward. That’s living.
Conquer your fears of what others would see you as or take you if you showed your true feelings. They are humans too. They will understand.
I understand that living appears as the long road to achieving/accomplishing things we want in life. We get by each day as though we are being attacked by wild animals. We ferociously fight to get through as though there’s a meter for our lives or we are in charge of it. That’s survival mode.
But living helps us exercise ourselves authentically, peacefully, calmly, and purposefully. This exemplary living can only be achieved when we decide to conquer our fears and do the needful. Our fear of losing, being alone, being unloved, being broke, being unprotected, being abandoned, being less attractive.
And renew our spirits in knowing that we can be ourselves and we don’t give a damn what anyone thinks about us because as human beings who are bound to feel and hurt, we would, and we would surely get through them, healthily so, with time.
Choose more living over survival.
