Here’s How I Know You’ll Survive This

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Author of Be Ready for Anything and Bloom Where You’re Planted online course

There’s a survival secret that not a lot of people talk about, and it’s how I know that more than likely, you’re going to survive whatever is coming at us next.

It’s easy to get swept away by the doom and gloom and the pending disaster of the moment. At times like this, it feels like we have annihilation bearing down on us from every angle: the economy is almost kaput, nuclear powers like Russia and China aren’t our biggest fans, and civil war could erupt at any moment. And that doesn’t even take into account random natural disasters like wildfires and hurricanes, or horrific accidents like the train derailment in Ohio.

It’s enough to make you wonder how on earth you’re going to manage to live through what’s coming.

Suddenly there’s an avalanche of overwhelm, and it’s the kinds of questions that keep preppers up at night. Do you have enough supplies? Can you trust your group? Are you really ready? What if you forgot something vital? How can you get more money to get prepped? What if…what if…what if…

Let me stop you right there.

Spoiler: You’re probably going to survive it.

I have a lot of evidence supporting that. Here’s what you need to consider whenever you feel like you’re not going to make it.

Your ancestors survived.

First of all, you need to remember that you yourself come from a long line of survivors. It’s quite literally in your blood.

If your ancestors had not survived for dozens of generations, you wouldn’t be here. It’s not enough to simply have reproduced. Someone had to get the next generation to adulthood so that they, too, could procreate.

So while some probably died during horrible events in the past, plenty did not. Your ancestors have survived it all. They’ve survived big things like plagues, wars, the Great Depression, the threat of annihilation from various enemies, and natural disasters during times we couldn’t predict them and warn people using the news. They’ve survived smaller things, too, like floods, hurricanes, the S&L crisis, childhood diseases, the high price of gas, bad storms, hyperinflation, accidents, and governments running amok.

Enough of your ancestors got through such events that you are here: alive, well, and fretting about the future.

Look to the past, and you will see that you have everything within you to survive what’s coming for us, too. Survival is in your blood and in your bones. You, my friend, are the result of thousands of years of overcoming obstacles. You come from a line of people who avoided being killed by enemies, marriages, wars, pestilence, and love.

You are genetically wired for survival.

People regularly survive horrible events.

Another thing to consider is that people quite often survive terrible things. While some people do succumb to disaster, grief, or ill fortune, most people do not. Let’s look at some more recent history.

Sure, we can look back and say, “21 million people died from the Spanish flu.” But in 1900, eighteen years before that event, the population of the world was 1.6 billion people. So you could roughly extrapolate from that that one billion five hundred seventy-nine million people survived it. (1,579,000,000) Those are pretty decent odds, right?

And what about the Great Depression? This paper suggests that the only cause of mortality that increased was suicide, and this article says that the life expectancy of people actually increased during that time. In fact, it says that more people live longer during times of economic downturn, referencing the paper mentioned previously.

…historical research shows that during the 20th century, increases in U.S. mortality often occurred during times of economic prosperity, while decreases occurred during economic depressions or recessions.

In the first few years after the 1929 stock market crash, the only major cause of death that increased was suicide, says José A. Tapia Granados, a professor of politics at Drexel University and co-author of a 2009 research paper in PNAS about life and death during the Great Depression. While suicides went up, Tapia found that deaths from cardiovascular and renal diseases stabilized between 1930 and 1932, the worst years of the depression. Traffic deaths dropped in 1932. Deaths from tuberculosis, the flu and pneumonia also declined.

Around 100,000 people died during the Balkan War, and more than two million had to flee their homes to survive. The population of that area was about 4 million people, so again…while the death toll was horrific, more people survived than did not.

I’m not sharing any of this to belittle the horrendous things that have occurred throughout history. Any death that comes from a disaster or a war or a genocide or an economic catastrophe is a terrible thing. But the fact is that more people live through terrible events than succumb to them.

Some of it is out of your hands.

All of this is why we prep. We want to put ourselves firmly on the side of those who make it through to the other side. We want our families to suffer less from terrible events.  But even people who’ve never heard of prepping, who’ve never stacked up a five-gallon bucket full of food, and who haven’t read any books or articles about the topic still have a decent chance of making it through.

Of course, some things are completely out of our hands. If you happen to be at Ground Zero when a nuke hits, there is no amount of preparation that can save you. The same thing goes for a terrible accident at the workplace or a collision with a drunk driver. If there’s an extinction-level event like a giant meteor, we’re all done. Sometimes your ticket gets punched, and it’s your time.

There are also some personal circumstances that can prevent survival, such as reliance on daily medication or equipment. Again, this is largely out of our hands, and there’s only so much we can do about it.

We prepare to give ourselves the very best odds possible, and we are right to do so.  I feel much better knowing that I have skills and supplies put back that just might give me an edge during hard times. I will always be glad that I have taught my children vital prepper knowledge. Maybe we won’t just live through it but find a way to thrive in doing so.

Survival is how we’re wired.

But even without these things, humans are wired for survival. Even the silly ones. (Although sometimes you have to wonder about some of the folks you see these days – it seems like they can barely survive a  day at work or school without “safe spaces,” much less an epic disaster.)

Our operational objectives as human beings are to survive and to further our species by protecting our young. We can adapt to the most astounding things in our efforts to do so. We’ve done it since humans first existed, and we’ll continue indefinitely.

Things may be very, very hard. The world could change dramatically and for the worst. We may wonder how on earth we’ll do it if we lose our house, our car, our way of life, and our stability. (I’ve been there.) And you know what? That will really suck if it happens.

But eventually, we’ll come out on the other side. And even while things are bad, we’ll love people, we’ll find reasons to laugh, we’ll enjoy whatever it is we’re eating, and we will do our best to keep in touch with the things that make us human. We need to focus on those simple joys instead of focusing on what we’ve lost.

We just have to keep going.

If we do, we’ll probably survive.

You’re going to make it.

So if you’re wondering whether or not your going to be able to survive this, you know what? You probably are. The statistics are all in your favor. You were born to be resilient.

You keep on doing the best that you can. Prepare to the best of your ability and learn new skills to make it a little bit easier. Be ready to adapt to changing circumstances. Control what you can and let go of what you can’t control. Remember to find happiness wherever you can.

And don’t forget who the heck you are.

About Daisy

Daisy Luther is a coffee-swigging, adventure-seeking, globe-trotting blogger. She is the founder and publisher of three websites.  1) The Organic Prepper, which is about current events, preparedness, self-reliance, and the pursuit of liberty; 2)  The Frugalite, a website with thrifty tips and solutions to help people get a handle on their personal finances without feeling deprived; and 3) PreppersDailyNews.com, an aggregate site where you can find links to all the most important news for those who wish to be prepared. Her work is widely republished across alternative media and she has appeared in many interviews.

Daisy is the best-selling author of 5 traditionally published books, 12 self-published books, and runs a small digital publishing company with PDF guides, printables, and courses at SelfRelianceand Survival.com You can find her on Facebook, Pinterest, Gab, MeWe, Parler, Instagram, and Twitter.