It Doesn't Take a Big Miracle to Appreciate the Small Ones

The most recent book I’ve read is Miracle in the Andes. It was written by one of the survivors of an airplane crash in the early 1970’s. I’ve read a number of profound books in my life, another one being Left to Tell.

What struck me about this first-person account about these young rugby players’ survival in the Andes after a plane crash for 72 days, was how it demonstrated the POWER OF THE MIND and the importance in KEEPING OUR FOCUS ON OUR HIGHEST CRITERIA. Getting distracted by negative consequences drains our energy and pulls that energy away from what we need to be doing to have a better outcome.

The author, Nando Parrado, was unconscious for 3 days before he came to and discovered that the plane crashed and his mother and sister and many of his team mates were dead or dying. It was only the beginning of 72 days of 30 below-freezing temperatures, no winter clothing, no water, no food and no way out. After 72 days of impossible conditions, it took the author and another one of the survivors 10 days to walk 45 miles over 17,000-foot mountain peeks to find a shepherd to get help.

They improvised ways of making water, fashioned snow shoes out of plane insulation and a multitude of other somewhat ingenious and horrifying ways of surviving. They found out while trying to get the plane radio to work that the search for them had been called off. Nando, an ordinary young man wanting only to survive, led an expedition up the treacherous slopes of snow-capped mountains and across 45 miles of frozen wilderness to find help.

He stayed beside his sister until she finally gave up her life. When he was told after becoming conscious that his mother had died in the crash, the tears began to well up inside of him and he heard a voice say, “Don’t cry. Tears waste salt. You will need salt to survive.” Astonished by the calmness of the voice, he was then told of the others who had died. Wanting to sob again, he heard the voice, “Do Not Cry. They are all gone. They are all part of your past. Don’t waste your energy on things you can’t control. Look forward. Think clearly. You will survive.”

And he did. In the face of death, that could come at any moment. In the face of terrifying fear which he could not ignore, he lived 72 days and walked out of the Andes to live a rich and prosperous life: a life which he dreamed up in the Andes that included a loving wife and children, seeing his dad again, telling his dad that his sister did not die alone.

Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, in his landmark research and book, FLOW: THE PSYCHOLOGY OF OPTIMAL EXPERIENCE, says, “one common attitude shared by individuals who survived severe physical ordeals (concentration camps) was the implicit belief that their destiny was in their hands. They did not doubt that their own resources would be sufficient to allow them to determine their fate. In that sense they could be called self-assured, yet at the same time, their egos seem curiously absent. They found a way to function in their environment harmoniously. This attitude occurs when a person no longer sees himself in opposition to the environment. He feels a part of whatever goes on around him, and tries to do his best within the system in which he must operate.”

While others in the crash were blaming God and a host of others for this terrible accident, Nando was finding ways to survive and think about his future. He imagined his father suffering in agony for his loss and Nando would feel rage and hear the past words of this father during his father’s own bitter crisis, “I decided I would not quit. I decided I would suffer a little longer.” Nando would vow silently, “ I will struggle. I will come home. I will not let the bond between us [he and his dad] be broken. I promise you, I will not die here. I will not die here!

After Nando and the rest of the survivors (16 out of 45) had returned home, his father told him, “I thought that all of you were dead. I knew I would never recover from the loss. It was as if my house burned down to the ground, and I had lost everything I owned, forever. And now, to have you back, it’s as if I have stumbled on something precious in the ashes. I feel I am reborn. My life can begin again. From now on, I will try not to feel sorry for what was taken from me, but to be happy for what was given back….The sun will come up tomorrow,” he told me, “and the day after that. Don’t let this be the most important thing that ever happens to you. Look forward. You will have a future. You will have a life.”

So my thoughts for this hot summer day as I think about my trip to Iowa are as follows:

1. Know what is important to you and how much you value it. People wonder why I call going to see my family a vacation. It is the one place I know people love me for who I am and not what I do. They don’t care what I do. I’m Aunt Sue to them. Now it’s Great Aunt Sue.
2. No matter what happens, there will be another day. Don’t let circumstances deter you from what is really important to you.
3. Stay focused on something greater than yourself that is positive. Everyone will have challenging, even devastating events in their lives. Our success will be based on how we clearly we focus on a better future.
4. Regardless of what is going on, find a way to function harmoniously in your environment. As Csikszentmihalyi says, this attitude occurs when a person no longer sees himself in opposition to the environment. He feels a part of everything going on around him.
5. Focus your attention off yourself and onto helping others. There is always someone who is in worse shape.
6. It’s not about getting rid of the fear. It is about using it to survive or focusing on something that is more important. Fear has value. It is information. Work on discovering new solutions and opportunities. Csikszentmyhalyi states, “Most of us become so rigidly fixed in the ruts carved out by genetic programming and social conditioning that we ignore the options for choosing any other course of action. We will never become aware of other possibilities unless we pay attention to what is happening around us and evaluate events on the basis of their direct impact on how we feel rather than evaluating them exclusively in terms of preconceived notions.” Don’t make your happiness depend on what will happen under a certain set of rules.
7. Be grateful for what you do have. In the movie, TRANS SIBERIAN, one of the characters kept saying, “Focus on the donut, not on the hole.”
8. Learn lessons easily. Avoid waiting for a crisis to get you to wake up. A crisis isn’t the first indication that something is going wrong. Pay attention to the feedback you are getting around you.
9. Appreciate the moment but remember the moment is part of an on-going process. Your life can change in an instant. But there will be more of it. Be strong and a source of strength for those around you.
10. Avoid letting negative consequences get in the way of your happiness. In Miracle in the Andes, there are photographs taken with a disposable camera someone had in their luggage. Despite the horrific conditions and the ever presence of death, the pictures showed smiling faces. No matter what is going on, we can all take a moment to smile.

And I thought my trip up Kilimanjaro was hard. No, this was hard!