Deep Survival

Deep Survival is the name of a book that I just read and that I think every endurance athlete, or for that matter anyone should read, especially those of us who at times find ourselves making decisions under stress. The book is a page turner. It is about the psychology if getting lost and who survives and who doesn't and what the pervading themes are in survival. It predominatly deals with survival in the wilderness, but as he says it relates to how companies make decisions and what he calls the mental map. As with a lot of other things I have come to read and agree with it, to live life in the moment is the way to live, constantly acessing our situation and making a new mental map as he calls it and not just sticking to our outdated mental map and trying to make the wilderness, what we are seeing conform to our map, as that will not happen. It talks about prepareness, and also the ability to be flexible in thought. Having a rigid outlook will usually lead to trouble, but the real ability comes in being able to make decisions based on what you are experiencing and that alone, not the rigid map that we all have that leads to sucess or failure. I think that those of us who succeed in the endurance world are more likely to be of the survival mentality or have increased survival rates because we train our bodies and our minds to handle the stress of riding for 24 hrs and all that one encounters. We are more likely to have what he calls a positive mental outlook, a characteristic that is hard to describe, he attempts to, but it is a quallity that is hard to describe. The main point I took from the book was to be present and constantly accessing our situations in the world and look for clues that will keep your map of the world current, because our maps if held rigid will quickly become outdated and lead to being lost in the world or in our own lives. Check this book out it is really interesting. Hope everyones xmas was fun.