It should be noted that we are almost never in our right minds when we're desperate. Any cornered animal will bite, even if what it's biting is itself. The question is, why are we feeling cornered?
I also wouldn't say that survival instinct is just to prolong something, like if you try to burn your hand your nerves will reflexively attempt to avoid it. Most people don't enjoy pain and would go to the ends of the earth to avoid it. Who needs strength or bravery when you can have the freedom of Eternity, which is forever? (that's a long time). You have all eternity to do whatever you want, why not try all this shit life has to throw at you first and get to the stuff that'll come eventually anyway later? Time is the most effective killer, I can promise you that. But it can be a joyful ride if you want it to be, whether the ride is short or long. Life's pretty short as it is.
If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:
If you can dreamāand not make dreams your master;
If you can thinkāand not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:
If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'
If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with Kingsānor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you,
If all men count with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
Andāwhich is moreāyou'll be a Man, my son!
If - by Rudyard Kipling