When Survival Mode Became My Default Setting

I woke up at 6 a.m. on a Tuesday and couldn't remember the last time I'd felt excited about anything.

Not sad. Not depressed. Just... flat.

My life had become a checklist: wake up, work, eat, sleep, repeat. I paid bills. I showed up. I functioned. But somewhere between making ends meet and keeping my head above water, I'd forgotten what it felt like to actually want something.

I was surviving. And I was exhausted from it.

The Weight of Just Getting By

Survival mode sneaks up on you. It starts as temporary—a rough month, a challenging season, a crisis that demands all your energy. You tell yourself it's just for now.

But "for now" stretches into months, then years.

I'd been in survival mode for so long I'd forgotten there was another way to live. Every choice was about avoiding disaster rather than creating possibility. Every decision was defensive, not aspirational.

Save money? Only to prevent emergencies. Take time off? Only when I was too burned out to continue. Rest? Only after I'd earned it through exhaustion.

I wasn't building a life. I was maintaining one. Barely.

The Question That Changed Everything

The shift started with a simple question from a colleague over lunch.

"What are you building toward?"

I stared blankly. Building? I was just trying to make it through the week.

"I mean, what's the dream?" she pressed gently. "What would you create if you weren't always in crisis mode?"

I had no answer. The dreams I'd once held—writing a book, starting a side business, traveling somewhere beautiful—felt like luxuries I couldn't afford. Not financially. But emotionally.

Survival mode doesn't leave room for dreams. It only leaves room for tomorrow's problems.

That conversation haunted me. Because I realized: I'd been waiting for life to get easier before I started building. But life doesn't get easier. You just get stronger.

From Defense to Creation

I started small. Ridiculously small.

Instead of just surviving my mornings, I built one that gave me something to look forward to. Ten minutes with coffee and a journal before the chaos began.

Instead of working to avoid failure, I started working toward something. Thirty minutes a day on the novel I'd abandoned three years ago.

Instead of saving money just to prevent disaster, I created a "dream fund." Five dollars a week toward a trip I actually wanted to take.

These weren't grand gestures. They were tiny acts of defiance against survival mode.

The Difference Between Surviving and Building

Surviving is reactive. Building is intentional.

Surviving asks, "How do I get through this?" Building asks, "What do I want to create?"

Surviving focuses on avoiding pain. Building focuses on moving toward joy.

I realized that survival mode had taught me resilience, but it had also taught me limitation. I'd become so good at enduring that I'd forgotten how to imagine.

Building required something survival mode had stolen from me: hope. Not naive hope that everything would magically improve, but active hope—the kind that rolls up its sleeves and creates the future it wants to see.

What I Built From Survival

Six months later, I finished the first draft of my novel. It wasn't perfect, but it existed.

I took that trip. Just a long weekend, but it was mine—chosen, anticipated, savored.

More importantly, I built a different relationship with my life. I stopped waiting for permission to want things. I stopped believing that struggle meant I had to abandon dreams.

I learned that you can survive and build. You can acknowledge the hard season you're in while still planting seeds for the one you want to grow into.

The Truth About Transformation

You don't need your life to be perfect to start building. You just need to stop waiting.

Stop waiting for more money. More time. More energy. More certainty.

Start building with what you have, where you are, in whatever small way you can.

Because survival will keep you alive. But building? Building will make you want to be.

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Thank you for reading...

Regards: Fazal Hadi