Never give up hope

It has been said “Never deprive a person of hope, it might be the only thing he has”.

This is as true as a philosophy as it is true for those faced with a survival self-reliant situation.

You put up snares and traps hoping you will catch an animal or a bird for dinner. No luck. The watering hole you walk to in the desert Sun turns out to be a muddy creek with rotting carcasses.

You curse yourself for not telling anyone about your plans. You wish you were in an area where your cell phone would work. And if you do come across an area that catches a signal from a faraway tower, you find your batteries are dying.

You spot a helicopter flying overhead, light your signal fire and hope the pilot spots you. You wait for hours for rescue and it does not come.

The shelter you constructed with so much effort was leaking through the night. The water you so painstaking collected resulted in an upset stomach.

It is easy to lose hope. It is easy to start to panic. But just believe in yourself, trust your instincts and remember your training. It is you who are responsible for yourself. It is you who have to find a way out. It is you people back home are waiting for. It is you who has stories to tell. And the situation you find yourself in and what you did to get out of it, is a story that will be told through generations of your family. These situations are what memories are made of. At the end of it you will come out stronger.

Never give up hope. Sometimes, it is the only thing you have separating you from where you find yourself and from safety and a warm bed. Once you decide to not give up hope despite your situation, you will find strength inside of you to dig deep and overcome. You will be able to convert what looks like a survival situation (which it probably is!) into a self-reliant situation. Think of your situation as one where you are undertaking an extreme adventure. Do not fall into the trap of believing it is a matter of life and death. Believe in yourself and in your knowledge and your training and your will power to overcome the odds facing you.