Photo by Hans Eiskonen on Unsplash

In 2008 Jere Van Dyk spent 45 days as a Taliban hostage. In this week’s Wall Street Journal he draws on that experience to advise those of us now isolated by an enemy of a different sort. What are his keys to survival?

Some advice is straight out of management textbooks: “Set a regimen. Get up early…Keep your mind active, and, as best you can, positive…Try to accomplish something…everyday. Keep a journal. Help one another.”

All good. The act of creating regimen within regimen provides a sense of control in a time when life is anything but. Covid-19, you may have decimated my small business, slashed my husband’s job in half, postponed my daughter’s college graduation, upended my fitness routine and canceled spring races, and even kept me awake with fear, but you do not own me. You will not have me.

But there’s deeper wisdom. While a self-imposed regime has merit — and who knows how many great American novels will be written during this time — the real value of imposing new tasks on ourselves is the emotional support it provides. Who doesn’t need some emotional endorphins about now?

Studying Pashtu in the afternoon not only titillated his brain and helped co-opt the jailer, it also brightened his day. “It made my brain work hard and I felt good afterward,” says the former hostage.

Living outward when life presses inward also has significant emotional rewards, it turns out. Van Dyk urges sharing food, writing letters and helping others — all admirable things to do — with the added benefit of feeling good about oneself.

What’s revolutionary about all this is that we tend to get it backwards, placing emotion before action. Particularly in this time of isolation, emotion is enthroned; hence, if we don’t feel like doing something, we often don’t do it. Just ask my college daughter who struggles to motivate herself to listen to online classes and turn in assignments. I feel paralyzed about my business and struggle to exercise without the goal of an upcoming race. Van Dyk turns this tendency on its head: rather than wait for motivation, he says, do the good thing, the forward thing, the hard thing, the outward thing, and positive emotions will follow.

Regimen within regimen. Act before desire. I will have to dig deep for this. How many stay-at-home days are left?!