Wasn’t that a Rocky theme song? ‘Just a man and his will to survive?’ We know that attitude is key to so many of life’s situations. For example it seems that depression isn’t an ‘event driven condition’. That is to say it’s not so much what happens to a person as what they do with what happens to them.

I watched the Werner Herzog documentary recently: ‘Little Dieter Needs to fly’ about Dieter Dengler the German US Navy air pilot shot down and captured and then tortured and starved in Vietnam. It was amazing to hear from the man himself how he escaped and survived and eventually made it back to the US.

I think it’s instructive to learn about people who have survived and kept positive in extreme situations as it can give us clues as to how to live well day to day. For example all great survivors talk about focusing on small bite sized goals whether that’s making it through the next hour or, as with the man below, from this article

…Edward Brudno, an American pilot who spent seven and a half years as a prisoner of war in Vietnam. During that time, he learned French and mentally designed a dream house down to the last floor joist. He also composed and memorised a diary of his imprisonment in verse.

When he was released in 1973, Brudno asked for a tape recorder so he could record the poem. “It took him 45 minutes!” says Montgomery. “He had really kept his mind occupied, which was probably important to his survival.”

Determination, setting goals, keeping the mind focused are all traits that make us more likely to survive extreme adversity and also keep us healthy and sane day to day.

Mark