What's your disaster personality? Do you freeze up? Do you take charge? A great way to find out and learn about the body's sometimes surprising response to disaster is to read Amanda Ripley's outstanding book, "The Unthinkable." It's one of the best books that I've read and, trust me, I've read a book or two. The following is an excerpt from a column that the author did for Time Magazine after the book was published. If you are interested in borrowing a copy, email me at EngkrafJ@co.cowlitz.wa.us and I will lend it to you.
Five Ways to Refine Your Disaster Personality
1. Attitude: It turns out attitude really does matter.
People who perform well in crises and recover well afterwards tend to have three underlying advantages: they believe they can influence what happens to them; they find meaningful purpose in life's turmoil; they are convinced they can learn from both good and bad experiences.
If you're like me, you're thinking: Yeah, right. But we should probably consider these incredibly perfect and cheery outlooks as simply inspirational. Like all human behavior, they occur on a spectrum, and no one achieves all of them all of the time. Again and again, survivors have told me that their confidence in their own ability to shape their destiny helped propel them forward. And in any case, it makes sense to encourage this kind of outlook in yourself, in your kids--especially because this kind of burning optimism is helpful even if no disaster ever strikes.
Stay tuned for the other 4 ways to a better disaster personality! So, do you need an attitude adjustment? If so, find some ways to take charge of preparedness and empower yourself!
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