The Walking Dead, Survival Rule Of The Week: Know your limits

The Walking Dead has shown us how valuable understanding zombies can be, but, it’s more important to know what YOUR limits are in a zombie apocalypse.

You obviously need to know about zombies if you want to survive a zombie apocalypse, it just makes sense; It is just as important, however, to know yourself.

This week, I will go over many of the reasons why this is so important, and tell you how you can try to stay sharp so that you can keep on living in a world populated by the dead.

Let’s start with the phrase “Know your limits”. In the case of a zombie apocalypse, “knowing your limits” serves a practical purpose: If you know what your physical/mental/emotional limits are, you can avoid getting into no-win (I.E. Certain death) situations because you’ll know it’s simply something you can’t do.

On the other hand, not knowing your limits can lead to some nasty surprises, because you assume a situation you’ve come across is something you can handle, when the reality is, sadly, quite different.

For example, if you assume you can fight zombies, when, in reality, you can not…ooh boy…you’re first run-in with a zombie will not go how you’d like it.

As the old saying goes: “What you don’t know can hurt you.”

It’s in this respect that we can turn into our own worst enemies. If we’re ignorant (Perhaps even willfully ignorant) of our weakness, or unwilling to do something about them, they will be our undoing. Be it the living or the dead, they will use our failings as opportunities and our weaknesses as openings to attack; Only by acknowledging and fixing these problems can we ensure that they don’t get us killed.

Don’t worry too much, though: Our weaknesses do not have to be permanent, we can always improve ourselves.

We can always work to eliminate weakness, and the most immediately dangerous are our physical ones.

If we’re physically weak, that hypothetical first zombie I mentioned earlier will simply overpower us, bite us, and kill us. We won’t have time to worry about anything else because we won’t have been strong enough to throw off the first zombie we bumped into.

So, take the time to make yourself stronger. Lift weights, practice martial arts, do strength training, whatever you need to do to make sure you can fight off any attackers, be they living or dead.

You need to be strong to survive, and this is why.

However, you need more than just strength to survive a zombie apocalypse, you need speed and endurance, too.

Why?

Two reasons:

1) You will almost certainly take a beating at some point in the apocalypse, either from trying to escape the dead, or at the hands of the living, and you need to be resilient enough to withstand it and keep going.

And 2) …What if the zombies can run? If they can, you’ll need to be capable of staying far enough ahead of them to lose them and that will require both speed and endurance.

As I like to say: “Survival is both a marathon and a sprint. Train as such.”

If you are fortunate enough to be physically capable of surviving, don’t neglect the other important thing you’ll need (Which you can also improve upon): Knowledge.

I believe it’s important to be able to survive a zombie apocalypse alone, but, if you don’t know anything about survival, all the physical prowess in the world won’t save you. You need to know how to do things: How to make a fire, how to find food, how to hunt, how to fish, how to clean and gut game and fish, knowing another language won’t hurt, either.

The more things you know, the more chances you give yourself of surviving the zombie apocalypse in one piece.

Now, one weakness I neglected to mention is a peculiar one, but, no less of a problem: Underestimating yourself.

You see, we can be capable of so much, yet, not even see it; We might even fail to do things vital to our survival, not because we’re actually incapable of doing them, but, because we believe we’re incapable. We can be stronger than we realize, if we’re willing to look.

That said, if we realize we are capable, it might be worth our while to hide those capabilities from others who might look.

What hostiles don’t know about you can hurt them, I.E. don’t let them know just how capable you are, so  that, if you need to, you can give them an unpleasant surprise.

Speaking of not knowing things, and how that can hurt you, there was something I forgot earlier. One thing you do need to know, and you need to be extremely careful when you go about learning it is this: How long it takes for a person to turn into a zombie.

Sadly, it will be almost impossible for any of us to not know or see someone who’s been bitten by a zombie. If you’re with someone who gets bitten, as horrible as it will be to watch, you need to carefully time how long it takes for them to turn, because, not knowing that, can be lethal.

Imagine a friend gets bitten, the two of you carry on, maybe hoping the bitten party will be okay; Night falls, and you wake up to discover that your friend has turned…and bitten you.

There is no greater limitation for us than how long we can live after being bitten by a zombie and one we can not change, so you need to learn it well, or else, it’ll be the last mistake you ever make.

We need to know our limitations in a zombie apocalypse. They are the barriers set upon us before the apocalypse begins, and, if we don’t know them, they will become our prison. Only when we know those limitations can we know how to surpass them, and be able to survive.

This is why you follow…The Rules.

And that’s our Survival Rule Of The Week! If you like this and want to find out more rules to survive the zombie apocalypse, why not pick up a copy of my book, The Rules: A Guide To Surviving The Zombie Apocalypse! You can get it on Kindle here and on iTunes here!