What do you do when the shit hits the fan?

Really, what do you do when you lose control? You lose your job. Get evicted. Have a massive family fallout, or lose a loved one?

You’ve got other things going on. You have a job, unless you lost it, or are lucky enough to not have to work. Maybe you’re in school. You need to manage the relationships in your life, friends, family, working relationships. You most likely have a car you need to maintain. Maybe you have a pet that needs care and attention? Life doesn’t just stop when things get ugly.

The spring semester is about to start, and the pressure is certain to kick into high gear for students. This is a good time to be thinking about how we deal with stress, and what we do when the going gets really, really tough.

I have experienced some things I really didn't think I would get through. I didn't think I had it in me to push on. I felt like walking away, giving up. One of the less serious things that I feel comfortable discussing is in December of 2015 I had to move a whole house, more or less by myself.

I had just gotten over the flu, and just as soon as I started to recover, I contracted food poisoning off a shady burrito that I was forced into eating after I had worked all day, and moved all night. It took five days and nights, and several times during the course of that week I very nearly just quit. I had no Thanksgiving, no Christmas, I was at odds with the only family I had and I was sick as a dog. Somehow, I just kept moving. I just dug in.

It is not my intention to compare the experience above with, for example, the loss of a loved one. As I mentioned, it's a challenging experience I went through that I feel comfortable writing about. I think most people have probably been on the receiving end of something really nasty in their lives. I find the ways we deal, or attempt to deal with these things fascinating. Some people seem to deal extremely well with challenging situations, and others completely fall apart.

What differentiates people that can pull out of a nosedive from those who end up in the dirt? I am grossly underqualified to answer that question, and I’m actually not sure there is an answer. But I believe it's worth thinking about.

Recently, while speaking with a life-long friend who happens to be in the special forces in the UK, such a question came up. How do you deal with really shitty things in your life? We got on to discussing the training required to pass selection, and become a fully-fledged member of the clandestine spec-ops community across the pond. I’m always interested in the things he has to say. During our conversation, he seemed to emphasize two things.

Firstly, the idea of breaking things down into steps, or chunks was fundamental to success in his eyes. Secondly, he said, “You just never, ever, ever give up.”

I suppose it makes sense. If you break something complicated into smaller pieces it’s definitely easier to deal with. If you can compartmentalize things, and mentally or literally make lists, life becomes a game of checking things off and moving on. My mum always says, “Just keep putting one foot in front of the other.” It’s the same principle. It also reminds me of the old saying, “How do you eat an elephant?”

Let’s talk about the second part of what my friend said, “Never, ever, ever give up.” This is a complicated thing to address. It’s all very well to try to reinforce the attitude of never giving up when you’re in a military training exercise. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not taking anything away from my mate’s achievements. It’s just that being alive seems to be about exercising judgment, making decisions, and sometimes you decide it's actually in your best interest to give up, and sometimes that can be the right thing.

This is all about knowing your limits. Nobody should criticize you for deciding that, while fighting a losing battle, you may be better off cutting your losses. This is part of the human decision-making process that is integral to our survival. However, when the shit hits the fan, perhaps it is good to be able to dig your heels in and continue to push through the discomfort?

Every day we make decisions that affect the rest of our lives. That may seem dramatic, but if you think about it, it’s absolutely true. You can choose to keep going to work and getting there on time and doing a good job. Or you can buy a camera, and a plane ticket to Nepal, and start something completely different from what you have been doing with your life. Unless your life is flying to remote locations to document life and photographing amazing things, in which case I think you might be living my dream life!

But seriously, we expect ourselves to function with a degree of normalcy, even when we are in abnormal, extremely uncomfortable situations. This is quite a feat to perform when you consider that, in times of crisis, we feel emotional and physical extremes. Yet we still expect ourselves to behave normally and continue on with life. Other than taking the tasks you need to deal with the situation you’re in, and creating a list, chart, or some other method of coping, maybe we really can use the “never give up” philosophy at these times?

Let’s do a thought experiment: What if we are in a time of absolute crisis, and we are feeling extreme emotions? We are feeling despair, and we are not ourselves. There will be those moments of clarity when the clouds seem to part, and reality and perspective seems to set back in. I think that’s the time to reassure ourselves that things aren’t always going to be this way and start to dig our heels in. Prepare ourselves to push through, and ignore, as much as possible, the desire to literally or figuratively walk away.

Having the tools, such as a planner, notebook, phone calendar, and lists, and committing to use them, as silly as it sounds, is a massive organizational advantage, and it can really take some pressure off. Coupled with the knowledge that other people have gone, and are going through the same things, and the desire to keep on going, and see something through to the end can be a very powerful combination when it comes to dealing with crises and stresses in our lives.

That move damn near killed me. Hell, last semester damn near killed me, and I don't want to ever have to deal with the amount of stress I was under in those situations again. However, I fully accept that I may have to go through something similar, or worse again. So, I’m going to try to be cognizant of combining organizational techniques and try as hard as possible to keep on going when I feel like I want to walk away this semester. Here's hoping for a crisis-free, low-stress semester for everyone!

Oh, and by the way, you eat an elephant one piece at a time.