Attitude

Picture by KJ Photography

& is used with permission.

It's rightly said that attitude is the defining factor between survival and failure. You can have all the gear, all the training, all the knowledge, all the preparedness in the world, and it won't matter one whit if you have no resolve and your response is to give in to grief, curl up and die.

I struggle with depression, fatigue, and crippling headaches on a regular basis. Thankfully I am not suicidal, but I know all too well what it's like to feel that the simple act of getting out of bed is a monumental task. And this is in the comfort of my electric-powered, climate-controlled home! I shudder to think what it would be like to do so after a disaster when I don't know what the day will bring, or where my next meal will be from, or if I'll have enough clean water.

My life is cushy, no doubt about it. I have clean clothes and a soft bed. I have fresh water and nutritious food. I have entertainment, I have convenience, and I have comfort.

And yet there are some days in this cushy life when getting to the end of the day seems insurmountable. How, then, can I expect that I will make it through a disaster?

The truth is that I don't expect it. I hope that I will, of course, and it's not like I'm counting on failure. But eventually, my chronic and cyclical depression WILL catch up to me. And while that isn't a death sentence, it will make survival that much harder -- because depression makes everything harder.

(Everyone who has had to psyche themselves up to put on shoes just to get the mail knows what I'm talking about.)

And so ultimately, I have to prep around my weakness. That means a lot of convenience and a lot of comforts in my preps. I understand some of the hard-core types believe only in the necessities, and that anything non-essential will slow them down. And for them, maybe it's true.

But as someone who gets emotionally exhausted just getting out of bed, convenience and comfort go a long way toward making existence bearable, which to my mind makes them survival items. They're emotional force multipliers.

Your mileage likely differs. That's fine. You aren't me, and I'm not you.

This post born of the fact that I'm currently in the grips of my depressive cycle and I'm tired of people telling me I'm too enamored with things. I'm not a goddamn Army Ranger or Navy SEAL. Likely, neither are you. So stop telling me I need to give up my "snivel gear." How about you give up your "more prepper than thou" attitude instead?