This past week I have been watching a reality TV show called Alone. 10 survivalists are dropped off in 10 different locations across an inhospitable part of the world, beset with bears, wolves and cougars and left to fend for themselves – alone. The show claims that there are no camera crews following the contestants (just calling it out here – there are some shots that made me skeptical about this claim). It’s just 10 people with the 10 items they’ve chosen to help them endure and their wits. The winner is the person who outstays everyone else. The one for whom giving up isn’t an option.
The aspect I found most fascinating about the show is how the contestants found their way to the point where they could live with the idea of giving up.
The people who left first were delivered their reasons to give up definitively. The first person to leave had two bears walk into the area where he was camping. There was literally a tarpaulin separating him from the bears. That was enough for him. He wasn’t willing to risk his life in order to win the competition.
Similarly, another contestant decided to leave after wolves came close to where he was camping. And another when a bear took a run at him. Their justifications for leaving were all based on the risk they were willing to take. And they all left within 4 days of arriving.
What was interesting was on days 4 to 8 other reasons for exiting the competition were presenting themselves. On day 4 one of the survivalists lost his fero rod – a spark rod that allows one to start fires. He believed that without that one piece of equipment he couldn’t continue. He didn’t wait to consider alternatives, the loss of that one item was the deal breaker for him.
Similarly, during a storm on day 7, a contestant was camping in a heavily wooded area. From his shelter he heard trees cracking and falling over in the high winds. With this, he convinced himself that his life was in danger. He left the next day. He didn’t consider moving his campsite.
All the remaining people stayed on for 39+ days. Their reasons for leaving were related more to conscience and self realisation. One felt he’d proven enough to himself. Another wanted to be with his mother who had cancer. Sam, the youngest person of the group struggled with the isolation. All the people who stayed after 8 days, their reasons weren’t based on a fear for their lives. Their reasons were more personal, and psychology played a role.
To allow yourself to give up, you need a story you can live with
Going into the competition it is fair to believe each contestant believed they could win. However, hours after they arrived at the location where they would spend their time surviving, the realisation of what they were facing set in. At this point those who would leave early probably knew subconsciously they wouldn’t stay till the end. I think it is unlikely that they’d admitted this to themselves, but in their language one could definitely hear they were testing out narratives to leave that align with how they saw themselves. And once they had that story they had the permission they needed to leave, without the act of giving up disturbing how they saw themselves.
The people who left because they were afraid needed a justification for what their fear. Fear was the driving emotion, but they needed more than just fear to be able to live with their decision to give up. So, their lives being under threat became the narrative. It was no longer about being scared, now the story was focused on the possibility of dying. The narrative goes from; I’m scared to I’m scared I am going to die because of that bear. And for the guy who didn’t have bears justify his fear, he found a story that worked for him when he discovered trees might fall on him in during a storm.
Without doing so consciously, these people, who are undoubtedly tough, told themselves that dying to win a competition is stupid, which made leaving acceptable to them. They could defend their reasoning to themselves and to people who’s opinions mattered to them.
Cognitive dissonance and giving up
I’m describing the above because I want to talk about cognitive dissonance and how we, in difficult situations, adapt and bend our interpretation of reality to avoid questioning the foundations of who we think we are.
Cognitive dissonance is a feeling of discomfort. It is our body’s way of telling us that something’s amiss. It’s not too dissimilar to hunger. Something’s wrong – we haven’t had enough calories, we feel uncomfortable until we eat.
While hunger pushes us to eat, cognitive dissonance forces us to rationalise what we did, or to put right something that we did that we can’t rationalise. Let’s say, I killed Tom. I can rationalise my killing him by telling myself that he was going to kill me if I didn’t off him first. If I accept the explanation, the dissonance (discomfort) dissolves, and all I have to do is make sure the lies I tell the police about his murder are credible.
If, however, my conscience and my mind don’t accept my explanation for what I did, the reality of my actions will force me to either re-evaluate how good a person I am or to hand myself in to the police. Neither of which is very easy to do.
When giving up is too hard, thanks to cognitive dissonance
The interesting thing about cognitive dissonance is that sometimes it can lead us not to act, not to make a decision, to not give up. And the reason we don’t make a decision is because we can’t make up a story that we can live with to make that first decision.
Leaving a job that pays well, but makes you miserable is hard. It’s hard because you might be afraid that you can’t find another job that will pay as well. And it’s hard because you have people who depend on you, and you have to provide for them. And if you quit your job and you can’t provide for the people in your life whom you care about, you might have to accept a few tough narratives that might stare you in the face:
- I made the wrong decision – I quit and only losers quit. Look at me now, I’m that loser.
- I can’t find a job as good as the one I had, I am obviously not as talented as I believed I was.
- I’m dumb for leaving that job.
- I’m selfish, I left because I couldn’t hack it.
And the more of these stories we have to face up to, the harder it is to make the move to get out, to change something, to take a risk.
Existential dissonance
This is where things get interesting. In existentialism there’s a term; authenticity. Authenticity refers to the degree a person’s actions are congruent with her beliefs or desires. If their actions aren’t compatible with their desires and beliefs, they are being inauthentic.
This is different to behaving according to what we believe our desires and beliefs are. Who we think we are and who we are are not the same thing. This is a very important distinction. Our view of who we are is a construct that has been developed over our lifetimes to help us conform and fit into the world. Some constructs are poorer than others. To behave in a way that doesn’t align with this construct leads to cognitive dissonance – the issue we discussed above.
However, to be inauthentic leads to a far more grim outcome – existential dissonance. When we don’t recognise ourselves in our lives, when there is despair in how we feel about our lives, and our decisions, it is likely that we have lived inauthentically.
If something is wrong change it. Don’t wait for the story to give yourself permission, just get on with it. Listen to your pain and discard looking for justification you need to defend a decision that might turn out poorly in the long run. We need to stop holding ourselves back from doing what is right for us. Waiting until we have an explanation for our decisions that we can relate to others and ourselves is meaningless. We need to learn to listen to our true selves, and trust our beliefs and desires to point us in the right direction. Some decisions can’t be explained, and we need to learn to be okay with that. Giving up and quitting are sometimes the right decision to make. Even when it makes us feel like we’re being defeated.
Beautifully bold.
Blunt yet inspiring and even touching.
Sugar coating not required.