The Natural Survivor

Survival profile

When things diverge from the plan, you recover first. Even short on supplies you combine what is at hand into a way through, and you find the process more interesting than frustrating. You concede quickly that the familiar method is not working and immediately try another, so you are never stuck for long. You survive on what you can improvise, not on what you stocked. You can see it in a weekend kitchen. You make dinner out of whatever the fridge still holds, and when the recipe stops working you switch combinations on the spot. If a booking falls through on a trip, you open the map and start hunting nearby rather than getting angry — and sometimes the place you find that way is the one you remember. Your recovery speed at the moment a plan breaks is faster than most people's.

Strength and weakness

The hands that build anything brought you here. But the more you rely on improvising, the more you neglect preparing. Whether you have not collapsed yet because of skill or luck is something you will not know until something genuinely large arrives.

Advice

• Keep a Minimum Reserve — A history of improvising hides the need to prepare. Stock at least the things nothing can substitute — water, medicine.
• Manage Your Body — Improvisation only works while your body holds. Do not let confidence in your fixes push you past your limits.

Closing note

"By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail." — Benjamin Franklin