A kind person is still a kind person when there's nobody around to show kindness to. A hard worker is still a hard worker when he's taking a break. The kind person's lack of an audience, and the hard worker's lunch break don't suddenly turn them into something else. In the very same way, preparedness is who you are as a person, not what you happen to be doing at a certain point in time.

Maybe you had a power outage that lasted a few days, or maybe you just pay attention to the news and the condition of our economy. Regardless of the reason, you've decided to make yourself more prepared and you don't know where to start. This doesn't have to be a daunting task if you know where to begin.

Any discussion about preparedness will naturally lead to the question, “Prepare for what?” We can't possibly get prepared if we don't know what it is we are getting prepared for. There are thousands of reasons that Americans are “prepping”. Some should make you concerned, and others should just make you laugh.

I bet you think you know how to light a fire, and you've probably done it several times before. Many people think they know how to shoot because they can make the gun go, “bang”. Just as making the gun go, “bang” doesn't mean you know how to shoot, getting a fire going doesn't mean you really know how to light a fire.