You don't need constant comfort to thrive. You just need to know how to store up resources during the good times, so you can endure the bad times.

The next time you watch a lion take down a zebra on TV, look at the background. Look at the golden grass and the lonely tree. You aren't looking at a wasteland. You are looking at a planet dancing to the rhythm of a heartbeat—long, dry, and hard; followed by short, wet, and wild.

It isn’t raining all the time. And that changes everything.

When the dry season stretches beyond seven months, the land crosses a tipping point. Trees can’t regrow. The Savanna begins to turn into desert. This is "desertification," and it is currently happening at the southern edge of the Sahara (the Sahel). The Tropical Wet and Dry climate is the world's breadbasket and its wildlife sanctuary. It is the middle ground between the drowned jungle and the barren desert. It teaches us a brutal lesson in resilience: