Life can be really harsh. There are days when we wake up in the morning and we feel like breakdancing in our pajamas. But there are also days when we wish we never had to wake up again. We’d feel sunken and hopeless. We’d be buried with emotions that suffocate us within our own body. We’d be left clueless, confused and alone.

    We’ve all been there, haven’t we? We lash out at someone suddenly, feel extreme sadness for no apparent reason and get so worked up about things that we shouldn’t be cracking our heads on. After all, what is life without its bumpy rides? It takes courage, strength, stability and determination to survive this.

    Survival can mean a million things, but to me, going against all odds is the very essence of survival. Confucius once said, “Our greatest glory is not never failing but rising every time we fail.” We have to fight our way through it. No shortcuts.

    In today’s pressure-cooker environment, we’ll need to survive through many things. We’ll be bombarded with words like bills and payments that are totally alien to us. However, before all that, we’d have to live through life in school. We don’t sleep much, we’re still figuring out simple things like our compatibility with group members, trying not to fall asleep during lectures – we’re practically learning the very meaning of ‘independence’.

    One might think that peer pressure stops at school and that is as far as it can go. However, peer pressure continues all throughout our lives and at times, the bad and good influences we receive from our friends are where we need to use our judgement. You know what’s frustrating? People trivializing the survival of a student. We may be young, but we also have our troubles to deal with. However, we can adapt and live through it. So pace yourselves – after all, life is a marathon, not a sprint.

    In order to have enough strength to survive in this big, scary and materialistic world, we’d have to survive our own battles. In 2018, iconic television personality Anthony Bourdain took his own life. Every time he came on screen it felt like we were transported to his world, the joyful world of travelling and food. Little did we know that a world so seemingly colourful on the outside could be filled with such darkness on the inside. Hiding beneath that smile of his was a broken and depressed man.

    How could someone responsible for injecting so much happiness into people’s lives suffer from such tremendous pain? Why is it that more people are dying from depression than cancer? Survival in this case is fighting the thoughts in our minds that are more fatal than poison. One has to surround themselves with people who spread positivity and love. The ‘down’ will stop eventually, and the ‘up’ will take over. Buckle your seatbelts, acknowledge the ride and survive.

    How do you survive gossip and being judged? We all have inherent fears that our peers dislike a certain quality about us. But that’s completely normal. We’re all only humans trying to get by. So the next time you poke your nose into someone’s business or talk about an acquaintance behind their backs, ask yourself if you liked being talked about negatively. Eventually, you can survive gossiping and judgmental speech because you yourself do not participate in hurtful conversations. Furthermore, life comes in full circle. What goes around comes around. So if you’re nice to people, people will be nice to you, too.

    The last and simplest example of survival is living itself. We take risks every day even without realizing it. We cross roads, drive, take up challenges and do things way out of our comfort zones on a daily basis. Breathing itself is surviving. In fact, what makes us survivors is that we can wake up every day to a fresh new start. Growing up, maturing and gracefully ageing is surviving too.

    As humans, we’re always attached to the word ‘survival’. Imagine if we did not know how to survive in harsh weather conditions like thunderstorms. If it was not for survival, the human race would have gone extinct millions of years ago. Scrumptious and cooked food would have been a distant fantasy. One cannot just sit still and expect things to magically fly into place. Try simply sitting still for 10 minutes. You can’t do it, can you? It’s in our nature: our hands and legs constantly itching and longing to do something.

    By now, one must have realized that there are many definitions of survival varying from situation to situation. It takes courage to say “I can do it” in situations that seem like all the odds are stacked against us. Surround yourselves with people who lift you up and remember that success is not final, misfortune is not fatal, and it is the courage to continue that counts.