This book has a great premise: take a look at crazy survival situations (e.g., being stranded at sea, getting lost in the woods, surviving an airplane crash), and figure out what people who survived did differently than those who didn’t survive. Unfortunately, the execution is only so-so. You do get to hear a large number of harrowing survival stories, and the author does extract the 12 rules of survival from it (which I’ll list below), but in the end, I’m not sure these rules will make you, the reader, all that much more likely to survive. Some of the rules seem like common sense; some seem to depend on a certain personality type or something built into your DNA; some seem mutually contradictory. So overall, it’s an interesting read, but it falls short of delivering on its promise.
The 12 rules of survival
1. Perceive and Believe
Like so many 12-step programs, the first step is admitting the truth to yourself: you’re in a survival situation, it’s really happening, and it’s up to you to get yourself out of it. It’s critical to be aware of your surroundings, and to maintain a “beginner’s mind,” which is open to the world, and willing to learn and adapt.
2. Stay Calm
If you panic, you die. Survivors stay calm. They also manage pain well. In fact, one of the things you might be able to do in advance to be a better survivor is to learn to endure pain: to “practice hurting.”
3. Think, Analyze, and Plan
Come up with a plan for survival. It may or may not work, but having a plan you’re trying to execute is critical. Survivors are especially adept at creating routines that they can focus on and execute. And these routines usually consist of small, repeated steps, so that even if you have a gargantuan, seemingly-impossible task in front of you, you focus solely on the next step, the next tiny bit of progress, repeating that over and over and over.
4. Take Decisive Action
Survivors take bold actions to save themselves. Note that bold doesn’t mean reckless; survivors are cautious and meticulous, but they are willing to take calculated risks when necessary, and they bias action over inaction.
5. Celebrate Your Successes
Survivors celebrate every win, no matter how small. They express gratitude for the things that are going well, even if many other things are going horribly wrong.
6. Be a Rescuer, Not a Victim
Survivors are usually surviving for someone else in their lives: e.g., they want to live so they can see their daughter, husband, mother, or other loved one once again. This turns them from being a victim into being a rescuer; it gives them a higher purpose.
7. Enjoy the Survival Journey
Survivors always find something to enjoy and laugh about, even in the most harrowing of situations. Play and humor are essential to relieving the stress and pressure. It’s also important to find ways to escape the pain and discomfort of the current situation: e.g., by going into your memories, singing, dancing, reciting poetry, etc.
8. See the Beauty
Survivors find beauty in their surroundings, no matter how tough or brutal the situation is. There is always something you can appreciate, something in the world that gives you awe.
9. Believe That You Will Succeed
Most survivors reach a point, sometimes long before their fate is certain, where they are more or less certain that they will survive. This unshakable faith carries them through the toughest of situations.
10. Surrender
Somewhat contradicting the previous point, survivors also get to a point where they accept that death is inevitable. It is “resignation without giving up.”
11. Do Whatever Is Necessary
Survivors do what it takes. Whether that’s pushing well beyond the limits of normal human endurance, withstanding incredible suffering, even sacrificing body parts, they risk everything. Of course, anyone alive is always risking everything; it’s just a question of whether you acknowledge it and do it explicitly.
12. Never Give Up
So long as you’re alive, no matter how dire the circumstances, there’s always one more thing you can do. Survivors are the ones who failed 999 times, and keep going anyway to attempt 1,000.
Other interesting tidbits
A few other interesting notes from the book:
Learning Unconsciously
The book describes a patient who had amnesia where they could not form new memories. So if you met them, then left, and came back an hour later, they wouldn’t remember meeting you at all. One time, a doctor hid a small pin in his hand, and shook hands with this patient, giving the patient a minor pin prick. An hour later, the doctor came back and offered to shake hands again, and the patient refused, even though the patient had no conscious memory of meeting the doctor previously, and therefore, no idea why they didn’t want to shake hands. They just had a “bad feeling” about it, and avoided it.
The lesson of this story is that we all have the capability to learn things without being consciously aware of them. There are emotions and other subconscious processes that learn, and you will act on them completely automatically. In fact, the rational, conscious thought often follows the emotional, unconscious thought: e.g., if someone surprises you, first you react completely automatically (e.g., jumping back or screaming), and only after does your conscious mind kick in.
Song Lines
The book describes an ancient way to navigate unfamiliar places without losing your bearings. The idea is to regularly spot items along your path, and to explicitly discuss them, either with other people in your group, or even yourself. E.g., “Oh, this is plant can be used for…” or “That rock formation reminds me of a…” or “This river makes the most amazing sound.” In a sense, you are turning everyday items along your path into landmarks, and you’ll be able to go backwards along these landmarks by remembering the conversations you had along the way. This technique is known as following “song lines,” as there are songs you can memorize that describe landmarks along your route, so singing allows you to navigate.
Rating: 3.5 stars
Yevgeniy Brikman
If you enjoyed this post, you may also like my books. If you need help with DevOps, reach out to me at Gruntwork.