Some years ago I asked to talk to an African American man who had written a number of pieces in the local paper. In my email I said that although I had two Black sons in law and had Black men occasionally come to my office, I often felt that I was missing something important about the Black subculture, namely how Blacks actually engage in conversation, friendship, and intimacy. Intimacy is the heart of any good therapeutic alliance between therapist and patient. I was to meet him in a local café. I had been interested in some of the things he had said about his work, which was essentially with primarily Black kids. When I entered the café, he waved at me and invited me to come to the table where he was sitting with a friend/colleague (who happened to be White) with whom he had been working for a few years. As I approached the table and had not yet sat down, he volunteered something that has stuck with me since our meeting although I have not had contact with this man since. He said something like, “I want to start by saying that you look confident and a man who is thriving in life. If you want to know that your very appearance suggests thriving and it is off-putting. I have lived in an environment that has been one of surviving, not thriving.” I was not offended by his comment, but I did take a figurative step back from the conversation because I had never heard of the difference between thriving and surviving, and I immediately knew that I had not been raised in a survival context. This matter of surviving has continued to be an important aspect of my understanding people, to some degree the subcultures of America like the African American culture, but in a larger context of how many people engage life: they are surviving. Let’s look at the whole business of thriving and surviving that people do. There are many people who survive terrible ordeals, like physical illness or even war, but my focus will be primarily on people who survive through emotional challenges.
People who are surviving
- People with physical limitations
- Blindness
- Debilitating illnesses like cancer and heart disease
- Physical disabilities
- People with household difficulties
- Financial limitations or challenges’
- Deteriorating living quarters
- No living quarters
- People who interpersonal difficulties
- One partner is seriously physically limited
- One partner wants out of the relationship
- One partner is unfaithful
- One partner is addicted to some behavior or chemical
- Partners have substantially different religious/philosophical orientations
- Partners have a cognitively impaired child, which causes them to frequently be at odds with each other
- Partner one does not like the biological family of partner two. Makes Christmas celebrations difficult
- And many other difficulties that people need to manage by surviving
People who are surviving long term personal and interpersonal challenges
- Jack is unable to conquer his addition to one of the following: alcohol, drugs, food, promiscuity, gambling, video game playing, other screen time, working, playing, toxic relationships, or sleeping (too much or not enough)
- Marge is generally not happy with herself. She thinks she is stupid.
- Peter is not happy with people. He doesn’t know how to admit that he is smarter than most people.
- Both Marge and Peter are lonely
- Stan continues to pine for the woman he thinks he should have married, a feeling that makes life difficult for him and secondarily and unconsciously for his wife
- Dad doesn’t really like his son. Thinks that he is too much like his wife
- Mom really favors daughter # 1 over daughter #2 because Mom is more like #1
- Martha loves, or thinks she loves Sam, but Sam is quite neglectful of her. She has tried everything to accommodate to him and to change him without success
- Anthony just went through radiation treatment for prostate cancer but his PSA numbers are even worse than before treatment.
- Anthony’s wife is surviving his illness and imminent death by worrying about how she will make it alone given their current financial disaster
The ways people survive these difficulties
In a nutshell, they avoid them. This means that ignore the feelings associated with their lives. What happens then? They turn to anger, avoidance, addiction, or some kind of fruitless activity.
- Philip on the cruise boat holes himself up in his cabin coming out only to eat when he is desperately hungry
- Alex spends 85% of his day playing video games
- Francis takes Tylenol every two hours
- Craig does his best to ignore the mess his dogs makes and covers the smell with incense
- Frank talk about doing something on the house that pleases his wife but never actually does anything
- Anthony’s wife goes silent for the most part, occasionally throwing barbs at her husband for not managing their finances well
- Anthony indulges in a good deal of self-hate, which seems to be a way he can atone for his mistakes.
- Some people start projects and abandon them because they are tired or bored. This leads to a lot of clutter in their lives, like property, relationships, and projects half-done.
- Many people go to doctors and hospitals to have yet another blood test or CT scan to find the magic bullet
What has gone wrong with these people, many of who are intelligent and kind, and been productive in life?
In a nutshell, they haven’t grown up. But what does that mean? Almost all of the people I have noted above (all of whom have had their presented situations altered for privacy) have had pretty good lives and then got stuck somehow. They got stuck because they stop growing, which means that never learned to adapt, adjust, compromise, and find a way to adequately meet the new challenges of life. They might have had good marriages and jobs to start with. They might have successfully raised children. They might have even made a great deal of money along the way. But somehow, they never were able to move from one element of life to the next, from one need to the next need, from one job to another, from one house to another, or maybe even from one spouse to another or to being alone. They didn’t adapt to the changes that occurred in their lives thinking that the old things should still work.
Secondly, they didn’t learn how to feel, particularly the feeling of disappointment and hurt that comes in life, usually every day, allow themselves to feel sad for a season, and then take stock of what lies in front of them.
Thirdly, because they haven’t grown up and haven’t found a way to deal with disappointment, they have fallen into the avoidance, anger, avoidance, or fruitless activity that used to work but no longer works.
Fourthly and most importantly, they haven’t found ways face the paradoxes of life. They want the old things to work rather than finding new ways to succeed in life. They haven’t found ways to love you wife but not like some things about her, like your job for the most part but not like the 20% that you don’t like, love the house and hate the housework.
So, what can be done to do more thriving and less surviving?
- Admit to your feelings. If you have read any of our blogs, you have already heard this call: admit to what is there, particularly how you feel. You will feel some combination of:
- Hurt
- Disappointment
- Sadness
- Then note the quick transformation of these basic feelings hurt and disappointment and the natural emotion of sadness quickly transfer into something else:
- Anger
- Fear
- Avoidance
- Addiction
- Undue activity
- Tell someone how you feel, ideally a person who doesn’t give you advice or “get over it” or “just do something.” Such a person could be a good friend, family member, or a therapist-like person.
- Consider that there might be drastic action, like divorce, moving to a new house, quitting your job. Most of the time you won’t have to do such things. Just give these thoughts some room
- If you are really in an intolerable situation, whatever it is, find a way out of it.
- Leave your wife or job or house
- Find a way to live the life you have left on this earth
- Go to the country you have wanted to see all of your life
- If drastic action is needed (it usually isn’t), note your feelings
- Admit to the feeling of disappointment. Life at this point in your life is just not what you expected
- Admit to the sadness
- Allow your sadness to run its course. Sadness always ends
- Work diligently to prevent anger, avoidance, addiction and fruitless activity
- Do something that you really don’t want to do
- Work out
- Fix the garage
- Clean up after your dog
- Dare to look for a job even though you don’t want to work at “some stupid job.”
- Then sit back and realize you did something you really didn’t want to do and appreciate your small effort.
- Take a break from doing what you didn’t want to do and indulge yourself in video game laying or eating a donut.
- Take a bit of stock of the other paradoxes in your life. Maybe read a snippet or so from the Stoics, like Marcus Aurelius.
- You will find that much of your life, perhaps most of your life, is pretty good for the most part and enjoyable. Allow yourself a few moments to appreciate and enjoy.
- Then, and only then will you be able to slowly move beyond surviving to thriving. Thriving takes time and a lot of work. It is not about money, property, or even relationships. It is about seeing what is, accepting what you can, changing what you can, and trusting yourself.
- You will notice that you will begin to have a very positive effect on the world around you: people, places, things, and ideas