There is a mental balancing act between allowing your mind to wander enough to think 'outside the box', to think of your situation from a bit of philosophical distance so you maintain perspective, to maintain a sense of humor, but also to both allow emotion to motivate you when you need to dig deep but to husband it so your energy is not wasted and to focus that emotional force into productive activities.

IMO the biggest obstacle to successful improvisation is the way our consumerist world is set up to provide highly specialized devices and to create an expectation that things only have a single use.

I was amazed when I saw a specialized device to open a bag of potato chips, $1.03 w/tax. I'm wondering what was wrong with using scissors. Mostly, not that I eat a lot of chips, I use my hands. But a knife would work also.

Years ago I went to a big group feed. Sort of a picnic. One family brought a suitable cheese and intended to mix in salsa to make a dip. But they were stymied when they discovered there was no can opener. I roll up and thee are quiet lamentations about how unfortunate it was that there was no can opener, and so no dip. Frowny faces all around.

Not these were not dumb people. Several of the men worked construction. And there were knives and silverware around to serve up other dishes. But no can opener. I grabbed a cheap chef knife and opened up the can. You would have thought it was a minor miracle.

This was a decidedly non-emergency. They weren't going to starve for lack of a can opener. Somebody would have figured it out before anyone expired. But it demonstrated to be that people have gotten into a rut. That was back in the 70s and if anything the pop-top cans have made people even less aware of how to handle a can without a dedicate opener or included easy-open feature.