Ten simple steps to take before disaster

1. Be frugal: Check your home and surrounding for supplies that already reside in the area. Existing water tanks. That water filter from the trip down under and so on.
2. Be friendly: People become savages the moment they are hungry and a moment before their children become hungry. Make friends that matter so you can become a group that works and thrives together. Don’t be afraid to be selective. A drop of poison can poison an entire well.
3. Be quiet: Avoid hanging a PREPPER sticker on your car or bike and don’t mention your horded stocks of medicine, ammo and high quality puzzles to everyone. Learn to think before you speak.
4. Be fit: A six pack will do you little good in a disaster but the ability to carry food and water home, to fight and to climb will do a lot. Make your legs back and arms strong for work and not a workout. Think of a farmer’s need for strength rather than a weight lifter.
5. Be attentive: Pay attention to people’s behavior and what happens in your surroundings. Awareness grows with use and gives you a heads up to danger, opportunity and the onset of big changes before the train leaves the station.
6. Be light: Learn to use each item you have in several ways. Your analog watch is also a compass during the day and each bag is also a water carrier and a twig insulation when it is cold. Thinking of new uses for items is a way of being. Make it your own before you have to.
7. Be independent: Pay attention when you have a professional fix your car or plumbing and do as much as you can by yourself or by being helpful and on the spot when needed. Learn the basics of as much as you can so you are less dependent and more able to offer valuable help when needed.
8. Be invisible: Watch and experiment with dress, walking pattern and speech. Pay attention to what takes attention and what flies under the radar throughout the year and events. Be able to take different routes to the same location and move as the gray man.
9. Be informed: Read and listen to several news sources that are both electronic and human. Pay attention to what comes before the storm and ride it.
10. Be humble: Pay attention to the free lessons nature teaches year round and to every person you meet. Everyone has something to give you in their own special and sometimes nasty way.

Do a little bit each day. It adds up to a lot.