You will have a survival situation (Or, why should I prepare?)

"It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door. You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to."¹

We do dangerous things every day without even thinking about them:

We drive, we walk down streets separate from trucks by mere feet, we handle sharp objects in close proximity to fire and oil. We survive these things because we have a robust internal survival system, because we are taught how, because we practice, because they are well designed, and because we are lucky.

These things routinely fail and the danger slips through:

• The truck in front of you loses a ladder at 65mph, which is now an exciting obstacle for you to not collide with.
• Your spouse slips cutting a tomato and there's blood everywhere.
• Your subway train suddenly stops and you smell smoke.

We also risk disasters and emergencies that, while less immediately life threatening, require similar responses:

• Your job gets cut and you're about to miss out on rent and healthcare.
• Your neighbor drills a hole in the water line while installing their latest Ikea project and now your house is flooding.

Eliminating risk is not the goal

If our number one priority was eliminating physical risk, we would live in padded rooms eating bland food and doing nothing worthwhile. Risks are necessary to do other things we want, like do fun things, build families, and grow careers.

You can mitigate most of these things with careful thought and a little preparation

So let's get to it.