A friend shared a story: she met a successful person through a mutual acquaintance, approaching the encounter with a learning mindset. This individual, earning millions annually in a non-top-tier industry in a mid-sized city, was truly a dazzling presence. He proudly recounted an anecdote: ten years ago, as a health product salesperson, he successfully convinced someone with limited financial means to take out a loan for hundreds of thousands worth of his products, a debt they’re still repaying today. Even more chilling, he absolutely forbade his sales team from sympathizing with any client, demanding 100% service to ‘extract’ every last penny from customers. Hearing this, my friend was utterly horrified. She felt she wasn’t facing a benevolent, traditional successful person, but a wolf with glowing green eyes, ready to ‘devour’ any passerby. My friend instantly grasped this person’s core trait: despite being wealthy and successful, he was deeply entrenched in ‘survival mode’ – the kind of person you absolutely must avoid. As our friend John says, not all money is good money. This article will help you unlock three questions: 1. What defines a ‘survival mode’ person? 2. What are the dangers of this mode? 3. How can you cleverly steer clear of such individuals? **What is a ‘Survival Mode’ Person?** ‘Survival mode,’ simply put, describes someone severely lacking in both material and emotional resources. Such individuals have no surplus energy to build genuine intimate relationships and will even continuously drain your own energy. 1. **A scarcity-driven mode centered on predation.** This means if they are your friends, they won’t applaud your excellence and progress. Instead, they’ll be hysterically jealous, trying every trick to make what’s yours theirs, and if they can’t, they’ll drag you down with them. 2. **Zero-sum game.** In their world, there’s only struggle, no win-win. Your win equals their loss. So, if you’re a ‘normal person,’ you’re easily exploited and drained by them. In any relationship—friendship, romance, family, or workplace hierarchy—most low-level individuals unable to break free from their own obsessions carry this zero-sum mindset. They are fixated on being better than you, relentlessly ‘involutioning’ others instead of elevating themselves. 3. **Finding endless joy in conflict.** In ‘survival mode,’ people are driven by internal scarcity and insecurity, constantly striving to satisfy more desires. Propelled by competition and desire, they are always rushing, their brains perpetually racing, unable to stop for a moment, sometimes not even knowing what they’re busy with. They remain oblivious to physical and mental exhaustion, completely ignoring their true inner needs. In contrast, ‘existence mode’ is about enjoying being human, living in the present, feeling every sensation and need, staying connected with the surroundings, opening up one’s five senses and emotions, fully immersing oneself in life, experiencing the inherent joy of things with vibrant curiosity and conscious awareness. 4. **All energy spent on maintaining dignity.** ‘Survival mode’ players have few chips in hand, yet they desperately cling to their meager dignity and sense of control. Thus, they are particularly prone to bickering over trivial matters, like why someone suddenly became cold, or why someone said a particular thing. They repeatedly ponder if they did something wrong, if someone looks down on them, if it’s unfair, falling into a vicious cycle of ‘why are they treating me this way?’ But in reality, these ‘false moves’ are utterly worthless; they gain no resources or change, at most maintaining the illusion of ‘I didn’t lose.’ Consequently, their state is tense and twisted, lacking ease and grace. 5. **The burnout constantly pressing the gas pedal.** They are stuck in a learned psychological defense mechanism. When we face continuous stress or unresolved emotional issues, the brain’s ‘fight mode’ activates—a wartime mode primitive humans used to cope with sudden events, ensuring survival. But in modern society, work, relationships, and anxiety cause us to constantly press the gas, running, coping, and dealing without pause. Such individuals know they are exhausted but lack a pause button; they can’t stop, like an unceasing machine. 6. **Subconsciously grabbing what they need from the outside, even at others’ expense.** Many such people adhere to social Darwinism, with ‘survival of the fittest’ deeply ingrained. I recall a writer recounting a murder case where one family, due to a children’s dispute, hacked the patriarch of another family to death. Logically, people should sympathize with the victim’s family, but in reality, they didn’t. Instead, they made things difficult for the aggrieved party and fawned over the murderers. This was because the local customs were fierce, a ‘dog-eat-dog’ mentality prevailed, and no fruits of civilization had grown there; under the influence of admiring strength, people lost their sense of right and wrong, good and evil, and morality. 7. **Their lack isn’t a little, but a bottomless pit.** A renowned commentator once said that someone who has suffered greatly will be perfectly content with just a little bit of sweetness. Wrong! Someone who has suffered for a long time will never have enough, no matter how much sweetness you give them, and they’ll even resent you for not providing the flavor they wanted. A key characteristic of those lacking love is that they don’t know what they want, so they end up wanting everything. They are committed to a ‘searching for mom and dad’ mode, using this as a master key for their lives. You often see ‘adult babies’ who constantly make unrealistic demands from their partners or children. **What are the harms of ‘Survival Mode’ people?** 1. **Treating people as means, not ends.** Their minds only process ‘use’ and ‘being used.’ The difference between treating someone as a person and treating them as a tool is this: the former, when utilizing resources, will keep it within reasonable bounds, care about your financial situation, consider your emotions, and factor in your long-term interests and physical well-being. The latter will only care about their own interests, solely focused on whether their needs are met. They will disregard everything else about the other person, wanting only to extract as much resource as possible before discarding them. The scarcity of ‘survival mode’ individuals either drives them to seek inward or outward; seeking inward is difficult and taxing, so seeking outward is their usual tactic. 2. **Only focusing on themselves, oblivious to others.** This kind of focus is about genuine care. Someone in pain cannot truly focus on another’s pain. ‘Survival mode’ individuals have very low energy, which leads them to only focus on themselves, unable to pay attention to others; their outward manifestation is selfishness. People who are too deprived, upon feeling even a little kindness or gentleness, act as if they’ve found a great ladder, eager to take advantage. They can never get enough emotional validation. Being with them is exhausting because you’re forced to say many things against your will. They are constantly seeking affirmation, recognition, and love, making a romantic relationship with them a torment—who can always put someone else first? Their self-worth is so low, they feel so inadequate, that they must seek validation externally, and those around them are the first targets. Mentally and physically healthy people won’t stay with them for long, because healthy individuals prioritize themselves, protect their energy, stay true to their feelings, and ultimately return to their own path. 3. **Persistent anxiety and unease affecting the energy fields of those around them.** **Their energy field is like being squared by Saturn, always carrying a heavy sense of unease, unconsciously influencing those nearby.** Moreover, no matter how successful or glamorous they appear, they cannot maintain stable self-esteem, thus tending towards pessimism and despair. Their inner powerlessness is either projected onto others or used to torment them. Deprived individuals have no love, only needs; they want to get things from others, and the only currency they can pay with is not love, but performance. Thus, the less love someone has, the more passionately and intensely they perform. A friend’s ex-husband’s performance serves as a good example. Their attention is highly focused on ‘immediate problems,’ lacking long-term planning and a positive perspective. If you are influenced by them, your vision might be narrowed, trapping you in short-sighted thinking and hindering your own growth. 4. **Deeply ingrained hierarchy mentality.** They will label everyone, weighing them on their internal scales to see how much you’re worth. Before Emily became famous as a stand-up comedian, she wasn’t highly regarded in her hometown, often relegated to a secondary position even at family gatherings. After her fame, at her family’s holiday feast, with two tables of dishes, the host respectfully asked her: ‘Which table would you like to sit at, please feel free.’ Emily was still Emily, but in the minds of those ‘survival mode’ people, she had undergone a complete transformation. Psychology proves that the more someone emphasizes hierarchy, the more they lack true self-worth. **How to Avoid Being Harmed by ‘Survival Mode’ People?** 1. **Stay firmly within your own circle.** ‘Breaking out of your circle’ has almost become a politically correct behavior, as if not doing so means being stuck in old ways and lacking ambition. In reality, someone who started with little, and through much growth and accumulation reached their current circle, made a rational choice to seek advantages and avoid harm. Asking them to ‘downwardly compatible’ or ‘upwardly climb’ isn’t very cost-effective. For example, if a child from a farming family moved to a first-tier city through education, they would struggle to develop if they maintained close ties with relatives back home. This is because relationships with many ‘survival mode’ people will inevitably drag them down, resulting in overt financial losses and covert cognitive and emotional losses. If they try to ‘climb upward,’ it’s well-known that we live in a mainstream culture that encourages people to aim high. Thus, anyone who is ‘downwardly compatible’ with you must have a significant flaw in their own circle. This flaw is likely a low cognitive level, dominated by ‘survival mode,’ which prevents them from thriving in their rightful circle. For instance, some wealthy individuals, ostracized in their own circles due to their stubbornness or stinginess, might claim to seek genuine friendship and authenticity by trying to mingle with working-class people. Don’t believe it; every circle has authentic and deprived individuals, it’s not about the circle itself. 2. **When someone’s initial thought or impulse demands your immediate cooperation, run!** A major characteristic of ‘survival mode’ people is their impatience; they want everything to happen overnight, defying the natural order of things. Impatience is an outward manifestation of greed. Being anxious carries very heavy negative energy. When you encounter such a person, because their every impulse demands an immediate result, your actions will always be in sync with theirs, constantly putting you in a difficult situation, and you’ll never find your own rhythm of growth. Remember one thing: you cannot get anything from a deprived person, including emotional value. 3. **Keep your distance from people who speak too sweetly.** Normal, reliable people base their words and actions on facts, and facts are never as dramatic, engaging, pleasant, or attractive as literary narratives. So, be extremely cautious whenever you encounter someone you perceive as a ‘soul friend’ or ‘soulmate’; such individuals are almost always con artists. **Those with honeyed words, whose sweet talk is as unpredictable as a Gemini, yet isn’t based on facts, definitely warrant your attention.** For instance, a writer, during a low point, met a woman who seemed like a goddess: free-spirited, elegant in speech, and unconventional in behavior. The somewhat naive writer was utterly captivated and deeply admired her. She told me tales of her legendary first half of life, spoke of feminism, and shared her views on relationships. I genuinely felt that my first twenty years, before meeting her, had been spent wandering in the dark. Well, she slowly started to scam money. After paying her several times under various pretexts, I realized she wasn’t repaying and was still spinning stories and concepts, so I blocked her. Adults don’t have that many sweet words to offer others, unless they are a couple deeply in love.
