Because shoes that fit better, perform better.
NEW BALANCE SLOGAN
This post is a companion to the original post, Modes: Thrive And Survive. I have had a year to reflect on the theme of that post, and I haven't changed my mind on any of it. I have grown deeper in my understanding of it. While that post was introspective and dealt with myself, this post is more outward observation and applies to everyone. Thrive mode is a ridiculous concept. We are all just survivors.
Thrive mode is predicated upon the belief that you can make a heaven out of this world and this life. You can't. From the Tower of Babel to the New World Order, human beings labor and strive to make a paradise in the present world. This utopian delusion can never be realized.
Thrive mode is the individual serving of that utopian delusion. This delusion takes many forms like the Bucket List and motivational speakers and consumerist lifestyles. Thrive mode is a rare thing and exists when people are fortunate enough to be rich in their youth. Eventually, age erodes thrive mode into survive mode.
Survive mode is when you throw in the towel on thrive mode. Age, injury, and poverty force people into survive mode. I think surviving takes more strength and virtue than thriving. They just don't give out trophies and medals for beating cancer, raising kids as a single parent, or surviving a car crash.
The genesis of this post came from hearing the story of a woman who contracted breast cancer and underwent surgery and chemo to beat it. While she was fighting this cancer, her own mother contracted cancer and died. After she beat that cancer, she would be put in the hospital again after someone ran a red light and T-boned her car. She had many broken bones and internal injuries. She would overcome that until she had to return to the hospital again to have 8 inches of colon removed which was a consequence of the accident. At this point, you are saying the same thing I am saying. This is one hell of a woman. She is a survivor. Here is where the story changes.
This woman was an avid runner before and during her troubles until the car crash. She fought to get back to that running which she does now. This strikes me as an anticlimactic effort to return to thrive mode. Being a survivor means less than being a winner. And that, Gentle Reader, is dumb. After you have survived all of that crap, getting a finisher's medal for coming in with the mid-pack at the half marathon is a mockery of fortitude. Somehow, the "winner" is better than the survivor.
Survivors don't have to prove anything. They don't have to sign up for suffering because they have already been through suffering. All of this thrive mode garbage is vanity. These thrive mode people are desperate to discover in themselves what survivors already know they have.
The thrive mode mentality is a sickness in our modern culture. Every year, people attempt to summit Mt. Everest which represents one of the prime items on the Bucket List of Life. A lot of people make it to the top. Most of the deaths occur trying to make it back down. This is why there are 300+ human popsicles at the top of the world. These people were motivated climbers, but they were not survivors.
I think mountain climbing is incredibly stupid. Somehow, we have become a society that celebrates this stupidity while denigrating common sense. Common sense is not climbing Mt. Everest. The most dangerous thing we survive is the daily commute. No one appreciates what it takes to make it to work and back home each day. That is survive mode. People do death defying things on a daily basis and don't realize it.
We need to celebrate survivors more. This means turning off the televised sporting events and appreciating normal people. The real heroes are found among the common folk. They grind each day as they get through life in survive mode. Survive mode is reality. Thrive mode is a fantasy for self-deluded people with maxed out credit cards.
