The only difference between adventure and disaster is preparedness.

Tuesday, November 6, 2012

What's another way to refine your disaster personality?

Yesterday's tip was to adjust your attitude.  Here's more of author Amanda Ripley's column in Time Magazine on ways to refine your personality:

2.  Knowledge:  The brain is amazingly malleable.  We constantly underestimate it.
If you understand how you are likely to react during a disaster, you can learn to override your worst instincts.  If you learn more about your actual risks--or the risks that scare you most--you will probably be calmer should something go wrong someday.  For example, did you know that the most serious plane accidents are survivable?  Yes, it's true.  Of all passengers involved in serious accidents between 1983 and 2000, 56% survived.  (Serious, for those of you who still don't believe me, is defined by the National Transportation Safety Board as accidents involving fire, severe injury and substantial aircraft damage.)  So now that you know that, you know that your behavior can make a difference.  And now that you know that, you might have a better ATTITUDE in the extremely unlikely event that your plane goes down. 

Knowledge is power, so says Schoolhouse Rock.  But you know what's even more powerful?  SHARING knowledge.  If you know a boatload about preparedness and disaster survival, magnify that power by sharing it with others.  Just drop some knowledge to your friends and neighbors here and there, don't bombard them with grim statistics or start the conversation with, "You're going to die a slow, agonizing death if you don't have 5 years worth of disaster supplies."  That's not a good way to win friends and influence people.  I'll have another tip for you tomorrow.

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