🌄Seasons of life - Thrive vs Survive
I think that there are 2 modes or seasons that we live our lives: In “thrive“ and “survival“ mode.
In thrive mode, this is when we are at our happiest. We have less stress and more autonomy in our lives. We spend more time doing things we love, spending time with friends and family or meeting our personal goals. This is the ideal state to be in.
On the other hand, there is survival mode, where you’re under more stress and have less autonomy in your life. We go into survival mode when exams are looming, a deadline (usually work) is looming or a major life situation comes up like a death of a loved one or the loss of a job. In these times, we don’t care about our own happiness or well-being. We just care about finding a way to just make through at all costs. While at times it’s necessary to be in survival mode, it is not optimal in the long-term. In my own experience, I’d say to maximize our happiness, we should aim to have a ratio of about thrive-survival mode ratio of about 75%/25%. Arbitrarily, after a lot of thought, I think the variation goes something like this*:
Thrive-survival ratio of 50%/50% - mild depression and anxiety. Manageable.
Thrive-survival ratio of 25%/75% - moderate depression and anxiety. Others around you start to notice something is wrong. Suicide ideation and feelings of self-loathing.
Thrive-survival ratio less than 25%/75% - severe depression and anxiety, with suicidal planning. Something is seriously wrong. Get help now!
*Disclaimer: The above is not to be taken as medical advice nor based off of any medical research or study. These are purely based on my empirical knowledge and spending inordinate amounts of time thinking about this self-derived concept.
🌡️Survival mode
Here are ways to recognize which state your in. You’re in survival mode when:
You lose track of your happiness and well-being.
You are seeking external validation or avoiding punishment from others.
You neglect basic human needs like adequate nutrition and sleep.
You lack autonomy in the situation.
đź“ťActionable steps to take
Here are some ways, that have worked for me, to tilt the needle back into thrive mode, or at least, make things more bearable.
🏊‍♂️Fully immerse yourself in the moment, in whatever it is you’re doing. Even if it sucks, if you fully commit to the situation at hand, the faster you'll get through it and the suckage.
🎛️Exercise the autonomy within your control, even if a task is forced upon you. For example, if you are a student dreading over studying for exams, make it more desirable for yourself by choosing where you want to study, who to study with, whether you want to add background music etc. The studying is mandatory but no-one is telling you how to study, just as long as you get the studying done is what matters. In life, most people don’t care how things are done, they only care as long as things are done. Use this to your advantage to exercise the autonomy that is within your control.
⌚Remind yourself that being in survival mode is only temporary. “This too shall pass…”
📅Plan in advance to mitigate the effects of the survival mode. For example, the night before my on-call, I practise “premeditatio malorum“, the concept of thinking of the worst possible scenarios that could play out and planning accordingly. This could be that there is a mass casualty situation, difficult patients, complicated cases etc. Then, I address each of these issues with what I can do now to plan for and mitigate the impact that these would have, if they were to happen, even though they are unlikely. If they don’t happen, that’s great. If they do happen, I have already prepared myself as best as I can to manage the situations. Premeditatio malorum helps me better prepare with the adversities I face in life. As Seneca says, “It is the unexpected blow that lands the heaviest”.
❤️Adopting the concept of “amor fati” - the love of fate, and by extension, fully accepting the situation you are dealt with. There will be a lot of situations in life that sucks but in every situation, good or bad, you have the option to resist or persist. Fully accept the situation you are in and decide it can be overcome and what you can learn from it. While it’s easy to play the victim and get sympathy from others, the world and life ultimately don’t care. What matters is how you respond to the situation to make you a better person. In my case, when I got the call from my aunty that my older brother, who I haven’t seen face-to-face in 12 years, died in a car accident after being hit and run by teenagers evading police, I was devastated. Sure, it felt unfair and I wish it hadn’t happened but that was the situation that I was in. No amount of complaining and blaming would change the situation I was in and magically make things easier for me. While it wasn’t easy, I accepted that my brother was gone and decided how I could move forward from all this, and what lessons I could learn from this unfortunate experience. As a result, that bad experience made me more resilient and give me so much more clarity on my priorities and values in life.
If you’ve made it to the end of this post, thank you so much for reading. Hopefully, some of these tips will be helpful to at least one other person, which would be worth this post. I’m finally getting back into the swing of writing so expect more regular updates to the blog.
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Have a great day!
