Staying Alive

Experts know that technique is less important than attitude when it comes to survival. People who are lost in the wilderness sometimes die not because they’re starving or dehydrated but simply because they give up. Laurence Gonzales, who has written extensively on the subject, states, “Being lost, then is not a location; it is a transformation. It is a failure of the mind. It can happen in the woods or it can happen in life.” The greatest challenge each lost person faces is coming to terms with how the world has changed. He or she must remap the world.

Currently I’m remapping my world after cancer. My first instinct, once the treatment was done, was to try to leave the cancer (and the fear) behind me. I tried to go back to normal, to return to the world as it was before.

I’m slowly discovering that there is no “normal.” I can’t “go back” to the same life because it isn’t there anymore. The landscape has changed. My task now is to really see the contours of my world as it is, to carefully remap it and to go about the business of living in it.

As Gonzales writes, “I could not change the world; I could only change myself. To see and know the world, then, was the key to surviving in it. I had to accept the world in which I found myself. I had to calm down and begin living.”