How hard is it to survive harsh conditions with willpower? Survival Manuals make it sound so easy!

We have a friend and member, Frank. L. Ticious, Esq., Attorney at Law, who had a habit of downloading volume upon volume of information but never took the time to actually study and was, consequently, totally unprepared to fend for himself when the need arose. However, it didn't take too long before he was fully engaged in the art of survival and, by sheer determination (and a little good luck) was able to overcome,or at least circumvent, the obstacles to his success.

I don't think one can merely "will" them selves to survive but faced with the prospect of not surviving, the body and mind can accomplish more than might be reasonably expected.

 

Do you have anything to live for? Any fool can die; it takes the will to live to make you fight. Actually surviving is never a certainty, however.

Although your will to rise from bed to drink water falls in the same category as willing your body to obey in a survival situation, they are each separate. In a life or death situation, you would have to choose to fight or give up -the consequences for failure would mean death. Since you were merely dehydrated, and a person can last several days without water, your life was not in jeopardy. Honestly ask yourself if you would have died if you had not risen to drink some water that night. This is the difference we must carefully consider: to live or die. If this absolute presents itself, a choice must be made. Why is it that people die in a survival situation, then? There are many factors at play here, from ignorance (not realizing there is a threat), to complacency, even stubborn pride can play into it. I like to think that many, when confronted with a life or death situation choose to live and their will to survive rests hand-in-hand with a proper assessment of the situation. So, you see...what I am trying to illustrate is that the most common reason for death in a survival situation is not losing the will to live, rather it is ignorance, complacency and being too prideful.

An example of ignorance: "I feel warm right now, I do not need to seek more adequate clothing, shelter or build a fire. I will wait until I actually feel cold."

An example of complacency: "The electricity will never go out longer than a few days. There's no need to prepare beyond this point."

An example of pride: "Ick! Who wants to eat bugs! I am a human being, not an animal."


And the will to survive can bring you past once commonly held barriers, offering the individual the chance to succeed even when there remains little hope. A closer example to your late night water incident would have been the indication you had no water nearby and had to locate it before you collapsed in the Arizona desert. Upon stumbling around for a full day or two, you finally reached a closed gas station and deposited your last $1.00 into the machine, but it didn't return a bottle of Dasani. Mentally crushed, you looked around and there was nobody in sight. Remembering your survival training, you tore off a piece of plastic and dug a hole, urinated in it and placed a small tin can with the top cut off at the center of the hole. You placed the sheet plastic over the hole, covered the edges and plopped a small stone at the center and sought shade. The moral of this story is, you never gave up. This is survival. How it all ends is in the hands of the universe.

 

This seems appropriate