Why We Prepare: 5 Reasons We’re Non-Prepper Preppers
The urge to prepare for disasters hits everyone differently. Ideally, it doesn’t hit you as you’re experiencing a life-changing disaster, but I’m sure many a hardcore prepper has been born directly from a near-death experience. For those of us who like to keep nature’s awe from approaching our personal space, it’s good to have some foresight.
Preparing just feels natural when you’re an insufferable control freak like me. Getting hangry and lacking a snack just ONCE was all the inspiration I needed to set my sights on creating a well-stocked Go Bag. That said, hangry emergencies are guaranteed, but I’m pretty sure the chance of nuclear war is low (despite the utter chaos that has engulfed us in 2025). My prepper tendencies skew toward “get to the community center” rather than “seal the bunker.” Here are a few more reasons I’m a non-prepper prepper:
1. (Competitive) FIRE!
I did a lot of camping as a kid, and if we were in a safe space like a damp field, my dad would tell each of us to go start an individual campfire. The first person to succeed would get a dollar. I have never worked harder for a dollar. Learning to build and control fire was one of the best lessons of my childhood, not least of all because it makes me seem fairly impressive when the city folk can’t get their chimeneas to perform. More practically, it helped me appreciate that heat has always been tied to humanity’s survival, and how distant that survival can seem if you don’t know what you’re doing.
2. (Hotel) FIRE!
When I was seven, I was in a hotel fire with my family. We evacuated without issue and we were all fine, but I lost one of my favorite shoes and never got it back. Keeping that shoe would have been ideal. I think about it a lot.
3. Backpacking for Dummies
On a backpacking trip during my high school years, I tested the limits of my abilities three times. When your parents’ faces clearly communicate, “Wow, she’s not going to make it on her own,” three times in a single week, reality seems to stretch out before you like a ravine you’re too dumb not to fall into. In order of least to most concerning catastrophe: I spilled 100% of our freshly filtered and boiled water after the sun had gone down, I confidently led us in the wrong direction for two hours, and I sliced open my arm by falling off a surprisingly sharp log while balancing on it and singing a jaunty tune. If the cut had been a bit deeper, I might have died awaiting rescue in the wilderness! Ah, youth.
4. The Big One
I went to college in the Bay Area, and I believe the very first thing they told us when we moved into the high rise freshman dorms was how to react during an earthquake. Shortly afterward, I learned that we were awaiting The Big One, which would crush our fragile little bodies into dust if we were in a non-retrofitted building. Coming from a tradition of happily hunkering down in the basement with a craft project while the tornado siren wailed, I was not ready for a world in which the disasters arrived without warning. There’s a lot to learn.
5. Hereditary Tomfoolery
My parents and some other family members lived directly in the path of Hurricane Florence in 2018. All of them refused to evacuate when given the (quite easy) option, and they claim their favorite part was the tornado warning, which they endured from the discomfort of a rickety back staircase in a 100 year old farmhouse… while drinking gin. They survived, but this disaster-scoffing madness must not afflict another generation.
It Never Ends
Since making this list, I was also hospitalized for a week because I was wearing slippery socks and fell down. Nothing could have prepared me for the disaster of high quality merino wool, but here we are. Emergencies are waiting to surprise us when we least expect it. What are your reasons for preparing?
