Fear The Walking Dead, SROTW: Believe In People, Believe In Yourself

Fear the Walking Dead season 7

To survive a zombie apocalypse, you need to believe in your ability to do so. 

Ever since returning after nearly half a season underground, Alicia has been struggling with her doubts over her ability to lead people in the apocalypse. This is a struggle we saw her still grappling with in this week’s episode, as Morgan deduced her reluctance to strike at Strand stemmed not necessarily from her fear that the group wasn’t ready but that she wasn’t ready.

Throughout her and Morgan’s half of the episode, Morgan tried to get her to realize that, in spite of what her guilt and doubt were telling her, she did have the ability to lead the group to victory against Strand, and she just needed to see it. By the time this week’s episode ended, with Morgan having to leave to ensure that, no matter what, Mo was protected, Alicia realized that she could lead the group, partially because she had to.

As I said at the beginning of all of this, while overconfidence is a bad thing in a zombie apocalypse, believing in yourself is essential to your survival. Your ability to do anything in the apocalypse springs from your belief that you can.

The best way to get my point across is by explaining what the absence of that belief could do to you. Imagine you encounter your first zombie. You can tell by its chewed-up neck and face, exposed tissue and bones, and sickly gray skin that it’s a zombie. You know you have to fight it, but your brain tells you that you can’t, that it will just shake off any attack you make — it is dead, after all — and so, you don’t. You consider trying to kick it to at least knock it off its feet, but your brain tells you that won’t work, either. Ultimately, the zombie corners you, and the rest is academic.

You need to believe in yourself. At the end of the day, you are your first and last line of defense in the apocalypse. If you don’t believe you can survive, you won’t.

And that’s our Walking Dead Survival Rule Of The Week!  Surviving a zombie apocalypse requires you to believe in people, in one form or another, whether that’s people in general, the people in your group, or even just yourself. Without that belief, you’ll be demoralized, paranoid, and broken. If you want to have enough confidence to believe in your ability to survive, why not pick up a copy of my book, The Rules: A Guide To Surviving The Zombie Apocalypse! You can also get it at Amazon here, on iTunes here!