The Will to Live

What does it take for someone to want to save their own life. Before that, what does it take to find the will to live?

Brain hemorrhaging

Recently I was part of a conversation that eventually centered on mindset. Some believe you can teach it, that you can teach someone they need to save their own life. Think about that for a second. How do you think a cancer survivor coped with their treatment, the countless hours of suffering and pain just so they could live. They didn’t need a motivational coach, the made a choice to live. Granted many had amazing supportive networks, but the decision to live, that life is worth fighting for came from within. You cannot teach them that, you are not responsible for the choice they make. There maybe contributing factors that helped them to see the choice, but you have to acknowledge they made the choice.

Self discovery

You can sugarcoat it any way you want, you can even go to the extent of creating a title and definition for certain parts to this idea, but the bottom line is you have to make a choice. I’m not of the mindset that I can make that choice for you, in fact if you need my help to make that choice you might be in bigger trouble. You see, I believe that if you hold people to higher standards they will seek to achieve them. Of course not all will be able to meet those standards, but the effort is a clear signal of their intentions. From there it’s just a matter of time until they solve the riddle themselves.

The forging

I’m fortunate to come from a culture where there was no need for any “buy in”. You had been a part of a forging process that epitomized our belief, it is passed down from one generation to the next as genetic code. I honestly believe it’s more of a reminder of who we are individually and not a reminder of what we need to be, it’s a statement. A very powerful passage states, “if knocked down, I will get back up”. It signifies that I am fallible, but even with that acknowledgement I will never quit. To get to that level requires an understanding of ones self, it requires the belief that the will to live or in our case the will to fight is inherit. All else is supplemental.

Fundamental laws

We’ve taken in this industry to creating terms and definitions, I don’t agree with that and truthfully I believe it just confuses people. Everybody and their grandmother wants to create something so they can mark it as their own. It is not always a bad thing, there are some good things that come from that higher order contemplation, though I find them to be very rare. The Will to Live is actually a concept that has been studied and expounded on my many people much smarter than me. What I have taken away from it all is quite simple, the will to live is only one part, the will to live leads to the will to prepare. That is the driving force in everything we do, we have to acknowledged the will to live because we acknowledge we have something to loose, once we do we work feverishly to be prepared. Being prepared is not limited to a physical item, such as a gun or a knife. In fact, those are nothing more than tools. Being prepared to me implies education, training and practice. It means taking the whole package; forging the mindset, tools and intrinsic application of said tools into one.

I get it, I get what folks are saying, but I don’t agree with it. I believe if you hold people to a higher standard they will break heaven and earth to meet that standard.