Survival Saturday: You Don’t Have To Survive The Whole Ocean…

There are some survival stories that are almost impossible to wrap your head around because the numbers themselves feel ridiculous. Seventy-six days. Seventy-six days alone in a life raft in the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by water you can’t drink, with no guarantee anyone is coming to find you. I think about that number and immediately try to imagine what it would feel like to know, on day one, that there were seventy-five more days ahead. Except Steven Callahan didn’t know that. He didn’t know how long he would be out there, whether someone would find him, whether his raft would hold together, or whether he would survive at all. He just knew that he was alive right then, in that moment, and there were things that needed to be done if he wanted to stay that way. And maybe that is one of the most important things survival stories keep trying to teach us: you don’t survive the whole ocean at once.

In January 1982, Callahan was sailing alone across the Atlantic when his small sailboat was badly damaged and began taking on water. He escaped into an inflatable life raft with whatever supplies he could grab, and suddenly the world he had known became a tiny patch of rubber floating in an enormous ocean. There was no phone to pull out of his pocket, no GPS rescue beacon like we might imagine today, and no certainty that another ship would happen to cross his path. He had some emergency supplies, including solar stills designed to turn seawater into drinkable water, but surviving would depend heavily on whether he could keep those systems working and figure things out as problems appeared. His boat was gone. His plans were gone. His sense of control was definitely gone. What remained was the next problem in front of him.

And the problems kept coming.

Callahan had to catch fish. He had to collect and ration water. He had to repair equipment when it broke. He had to deal with injuries, exposure, exhaustion and the constant deterioration of the little raft keeping him alive. At one point, the raft was punctured and began leaking, forcing him to repeatedly repair it while continuing to drift across the Atlantic. There were sharks nearby. There were storms. There were days when his body was starving and dehydrated and his mind had every reason imaginable to decide that continuing was pointless. He even spotted ships that didn’t see him. Think about that for a second. Imagine being alone long enough that another human being appearing on the horizon feels like salvation, believing for a moment that this is finally over, and then watching that ship disappear.

I think that part gets me almost more than the 76 days.

Because most of us will never be stranded in a life raft in the Atlantic Ocean, but we know something about believing relief is finally coming and then watching it disappear. We know what it feels like to think, Surely this is the part where things get easier, only to have something else break. We know what it is like to get through one difficult season and discover another one waiting behind it. We know the exhaustion of doing everything we know how to do and still not being able to see land. Sometimes the hardest part isn’t the original thing that happened to us. Sometimes it’s waking up the next morning and realizing we’re still in it.

I have had seasons like that. Not seventy-six days floating across an ocean, obviously, but seasons when looking too far ahead felt impossible. Times when I desperately wanted someone to tell me when things were going to get better, when I would feel like myself again, when the loss would hurt less, when the uncertainty would end, or when I could finally stop fighting so hard just to stay afloat. I think that’s something we do when life gets overwhelming—we try to mentally travel all the way to the end. We want to know how this turns out. We want a timeline. We want some guarantee that if we keep going for another week or month or year, there is something waiting for us on the other side that will make all of this worth it.

But life rarely gives us that.

Callahan couldn’t wake up on day twelve and know that rescue would come on day seventy-six. He couldn’t know that the fish he caught that afternoon would be enough, that the water system would work tomorrow, or that the raft would survive another storm. He could only deal with what was happening right there. Find water. Catch food. Fix the hole. Protect his body. Pay attention. Keep going. Then wake up and do it again.

There is something incredibly freeing about that when you really think about it, because so much of what overwhelms us isn’t actually happening today. We are surviving today’s pain while simultaneously trying to survive tomorrow’s possibilities. We are grieving what happened while worrying about what it means for the next five years. We are trying to make it through a difficult relationship while mentally planning every possible ending. We are starting recovery while imagining having to stay sober forever. We are beginning therapy and wondering whether we’ll ever be completely healed. We are changing careers and trying to know whether the decision will still make sense ten years from now. We take the entire ocean, dump it into one day, and then wonder why we feel like we’re drowning.

Maybe we aren’t supposed to carry that much at once.

Maybe there are times when survival is much smaller than we think it should be. Sometimes survival is making the phone call. Sometimes it’s going to the appointment. Sometimes it’s getting out of bed, eating something, telling someone you’re struggling, apologizing, setting the boundary, staying sober tonight, trying again after you swore you wouldn’t, or simply refusing to make a permanent decision during a temporary moment of absolute exhaustion. None of those things look particularly dramatic from the outside. Nobody makes a movie about someone getting through a Tuesday. But enough Tuesdays eventually become something.

Callahan was finally spotted near the Caribbean island of Marie-Galante after drifting thousands of miles across the Atlantic. He had lost a tremendous amount of weight. His body had been pushed to its limits. His raft was battered. He had survived seventy-six days at sea.

But here’s the part I keep coming back to.

He never survived seventy-six days.

He survived one day seventy-six times.

I wonder how differently we would treat ourselves if we stopped demanding that we know how we’re going to survive the entire ocean before giving ourselves credit for keeping our heads above water today. Maybe you don’t know how you’re going to rebuild your life. Maybe you don’t know what your relationship will look like a year from now. Maybe you don’t know who you’re becoming after losing the version of yourself you thought you would always be. Maybe you can’t imagine carrying this grief for another decade, starting over again, trusting someone again, finding purpose again, or figuring out what comes next.

You don’t have to know yet.

Look around your raft.

What needs your attention today?

Patch that hole. Find some water. Eat something. Rest when you can. Ask for help when someone gets close enough to hear you. And when your mind starts trying to make you survive all seventy-six days at once, bring yourself back to the one you’re actually standing in.

There may be an entire ocean ahead of you.

But there is only one today.

And today is enough.

Reflection

Question: What “whole ocean” have you been trying to survive all at once, and what changes if you only ask yourself what you need for today?

Practical takeaway: When life feels impossibly big this week, stop trying to solve the entire thing. Ask yourself one question: What is the next thing that needs my attention? Do that. Then let the next thing wait until it actually becomes the next thing.