WARNING: this rant casts my lifestyle in a vaguely positive light. I must stress, children - do not try this at home! I am a trained professional!

Perhaps there is a template for survival - how a person should live day-to-day. I suspect this bible is available in chapters and impressed on us during our formative schooling years. But I generally snuck fantasy books into class and let the teacher's wisdom wash past me Charlie Brown-esque.

I have indicated in the past that I don't plan my life much, relying more on luck than purpose to get me from one interesting scenario to another. Funnily enough this seems to work out.

For example, many people consider on a daily, or perhaps a weekly basis which bills are due. This process may involve searching through carefully archived mail or something. This is probably why my friends answer the phone when I call them, and I can rely on them calling me if they need to talk about stuff.

My process is a little simpler, more direct, and doesn't involve much thought. If I try to make a call and my phone doesn't work, I pay the bill. Sometimes I have to call Optus and talk to an Indian guy who may or may not gruffly demand to know why I let my bills lapse, but I am a calm ocean of Buddhist Zen.

I like to think of this as 'event-driven survival', where I don't even consider doing something until events make it necessary. The most obvious questions: what is an event? and what is necessary? Answers: an event is not receiving mail informing me that I should pay a bill, and necessary is when continuing without taking action will adversely and immediately affect my lifestyle.

Recently I have found myself in a situation that will test the limits of my age-old system. I plan to go overseas in just over a month, and this requires me to have a passport, plane ticket and money.

First, events drove me to purchase a ticket today. The event was Carla faithfully sending me links to cheap tickets and the necessity was my inability to go on looking into her eyes without at least putting as much effort as she does into getting me out of the country.

Second, events drove me to finally apply for a passport. The event was that it seems I need a passport to navigate the flight ticket-purchasing system, the necessity was the afore-mentioned need to buy a ticket immediately.

Next is the money. This is more problematic, of course, but I'll explain how the system falls into place. This explanation will hopefully go a long ways to describing why things often seem to come together nicely for me right when I need them to.

It turns out it costs $150 to get a 10 year passport. This was unexpected, but only because I am in some ways quite stupid. This surprise expense has become another straw in my already burgeoning straw-supply on my trembly-kneed camel's back, and I realised that I stand in danger of getting to the UK unacceptably impoverished if I don't act soon.

Considering this new dilemma caused me to think for the first time about the various assets surrounding me, where I may be able to draw money from, which gullible old ladies I know of that do not have current encyclopaedia collections - that kind of thing. I realised that I could possibly be rescued by an aspect of event-driven survival that many would consider a disadvantage.

See an event-driven purist, a person who truly only does things that he or she really needs to, doesn't often pull in loose debts. I, for example, have in the past thrown out fallow fields of uncashed cheques, gift vouchers and free rides. This is bad, right? Fortunately, someone who understands their inner nature like I do creates inbuilt protection measures against losing vital documentations that they understand on some lower level will probably prove important at some later date. No, of course I don't file it anywhere - this manifests itself as a massive pile of partly-indispensable paperwork that gathers on my desk.

So I get to work, my mind on money, and start the trawling process. Yes! of course! I haven't done my tax in over 4 years now, and surely I'll get something back... of course it would mean an end to my Paul-vs-Taxman tournament (Paul 4, Taxman 0, by the way) but it may provide a small windfall taking into account business expenses (I'm a programmer, computers are expensive.)

Then there's medical bills. I have gone through a few decent operations in the recent past, and still have the various bills, overdue-bill notices and collection-agency kneecap payment plans lying around. Yes, it became necessary to pay the bills. No, I didn't go to Medicare or HBF to collect my winnings. Cash for Paul.

This is how it usually works: one action leads to several others in a chain-reaction of smoothing out the wrinkly skin of my too-long-in-the-bath unorganised self. The system is by no means perfect: sometimes things don't ever seem to become necessary. Paying car registration, for example, has always been tricky when the damn Police refuse to vigilantly check your registration sticker.

So I may keep you updated on how things go, if I have to.