What is Survival Preparedness?
Essentially it is self-reliance. It involves obtaining skills, knowledge, and gear to better prepare yourself for the unknown. There are two general types of preparedness that are talked about.
- Survival Preparedness: This tends to deal more with your classic survival situations. Getting lost in the woods, plane crash, etc. Basically, a survival situation is thrust upon you in which you are trying to get out of.
- Emergency preparedness or disaster readiness. This is used more for events that can affect our daily lives. This includes being prepared for emergencies like a vehicle accident, power outage, or a natural disaster.
What is important to know is that many skills, knowledge, and gear items transfer between these two categories.
Why would I want to be prepared?
Unfortunately, help may not always be available, or it may not arrive in a timely manner. It is important to know basic survival skills and to have the proper tools on hand to take care of yourself, your loved ones, and your community at large.
You could be stuck on a deserted island, dealing with the aftermath of a natural disaster, or navigating through an uncivilized landscape. Pick your scenario but what matters is that sometimes the only person you can rely on for your safety, is you.
The Rules of Three
Adding to the above category as to why you would get involved in learning survival skills, it is helpful to know the rule of threes. These are a set of general rules that help people prioritize what they need to accomplish when in a survival situation.
- You can survive three minutes without air
- You can survive three hours without maintaining core body temperature.
- You can survive three days without water.
- You can survive three weeks without food.
Please remember that these are not absolutes but guidelines. You can read more on the Rules of 3 in this detailed article.
The Survival Triangle.
The Survival Triangle is another tool used by outdoorsmen to help visualize and prioritize what is important in a survival situation.
The triangle is made up of three parts.
- Gear. This makes up the smallest top portion and is considered the least important. That is because gear can become lost or broken. In other words, do not solely rely on gear for your survival.
- Knowledge and Skills. This makes up the next larger middle section. Knowledge and skills cannot be taken away and will always be with you.
- The Will to Survive. This is the foundation of the triangle because without the proper mindset, the will to survive, then the rest of the triangle does not matter.
Is it expensive to be prepared?
Like anything else, you can spend as much or as little as you want on being prepared. If you have expendable income for eating out or going to the movies, then you can afford to be prepared. Below is a very cost-effective example of how you can get started today.
Each time you go to the grocery store pick up one extra can of soup (or whatever item you wish to have in your supplies). Place that extra can of soup into your designated emergency supplies. If you shop once a week then by the end of the month you will have four cans of emergency soup put away. Easy and cheap. The real trick is to remain disciplined.
