Some preparations are expensive, like moving away from a known earthquake zone. Other preparations take constant time and effort, like cutting back the brush around your house if you like in a region that is subject to wildfires.
But there are some things that you can do that are simple, easy, and cheap - just by looking into the future a little and making good choices.
Instead, I will give some examples of choices that I have made or tend to make.
If trapped in a fire or you get too close to the fireplace on a cheerful winter evening, be aware that most synthetic fibers melt. Even the cloth that is treated to resist burning will still melt if it's made from synthetics. And the resulting hot goo will stick to your skin like napalm.
Natural fibers will char. They may burn. But they won't stick to you.
I'm not planning on catching on fire any time soon. I don't let it worry me.
But when I am shopping for clothes, if I like two shirts equally, I'm more likely to choose the one made of cotton than the shirt made of rayon.
My family has a history of heart disease. My mother had a five-way heart bypass a couple of decades ago, and angioplasty and stents several times since then. If I don't get hit by a bus first, chances are good that someday I'll have to have some work done on my heart, and in the process of cracking my chest open, I would prefer that they don't damage the artwork.
If there was some deep reason (religious, cultural, aesthetic) why I really wanted the tattoo on the left side of my chest, I would have done that. But which side didn't really matter. I could just as well have flipped a coin.
I'm not planning to have my chest cracked open any time soon, and I don't live in fear of it.
I simply chose the side of my chest where the tattoo is less likely to be damaged, in the event that my family history catches up with me.
In the days before the biopsy, I did several loads of laundry. I wanted to make sure that I had plenty enough dark-colored underwear to last me a week. Something that wouldn't show blood stains.
I wasn't worried about ruining my clothes. I wasn't fearful of what people might think if they saw blood-stained clothes. But I needed to do laundry anyway. I was going to wear underwear anyway.
I just chose clothes that would be less likely to be damaged, in the event that the aftermath of the biopsy was messy. (To some extent, it was.)
Having survived the biopsy, I decided to enjoy life a bit with a vacation in Hawaii. (So many people I know have been there, I might just be the only person on the continent who hasn't been to Hawaii yet.) During the trip, I expected to wear sandals on the beach and do some hiking. I wanted to break in the footwear and my feet, so I wouldn't end up with sore feet or blisters on vacation.
I wasn't terrified of a blister or two from unfamiliar footwear, but that might reduce my enjoyment of the vacation. I would be wearing something on my feet anyway for the weeks before the trip.
I chose to break in the footwear I planned to take on the trip.
We make hundreds of choices every day. Many of them don't really matter in the grand scheme of things. But some trivial choices might help in the future.