The following article has been written keeping in mind the magazine’s monthly theme, “Survival”. You may also read our newsletter here.
I’m going to assume that most of us have been born and raised in Pakistan. For the short bunch that hasn’t, you’ve probably already had a taste of what it is like in your time studying here. Pakistan is a beautiful place, filled with its own unique combination of cultural diversity. However, when the term survival pops into my mind, a dark cloud follows.
Survival To Some
The term survival has a deeper meaning here, in most of our lives. Just a couple of weeks ago, I witnessed my father with the barrel of a gun cocked to his head. I found myself wondering whether we’d survive this ordeal the country’s prevailing economic condition had somehow sucked us into. Almost 2 months ago, I remember the vivid memory that has been embedded in my mind for the rest of my life: a memory more popularly referred to as “the APS Massacre”.
When I was 14, I had to hear about other 14-year-olds in the northern part of my country trapped in a situation where they couldn’t survive. Victims of the most unfortunate incident the country has seen since its inception some seventy years ago. And then, less than 6 months ago, a mother of two found herself with a broken car on the Lahore Motorway. She witnessed something most of us cannot even imagine surviving but are not surprised to hear about.
(Image: Giuseppe Diotti / Public domain)
How Do You Survive?
Everything and more I’ve gone through above, almost everyone else reading this might have too. We might not be in direct proximity to what happens, but we hear about it. We meet people who go through it, and we wonder each passing day: how do you survive? If I had the answer to this question, I wouldn’t be listening to Kelly Clarkson’s Stronger, would I? Truth be told, I’m not sure how many of us survive when we go through something traumatic, but we do. Whether it’s a rough semester, a broken heart, losing a loved one. We somehow almost always find the strength to pick the pieces, collect ourselves and move on. I think those set of emotions and the resilience we have within us is what makes us human.
What also makes us human is finding it difficult to muster up the strength to not survive whatever that circles around us. Sometimes we cannot understand how to process what is going on, how to deal with stress or the pain. But each passing day it gets better. It gets better till we learn how to adapt, fight and most importantly, find the strength to survive.
