I’ve long stated that preparedness is a lot like having insurance: you carry insurance just in case you need yet hope you never do. As a personal example, last September we had a massive hail storm roll through our neighborhood. It totaled our vehicles, and did significant damage to our house (we needed new rooftop shingles, some house siding replaced, garage doors, and more). But in my twenty-plus years of various homeownership I can state that I’ve never filed a claim…until the hail storm. I’m sure that I’d complained about having to pay my insurance more than once over that twenty years; now I can state with certainty that I was very glad we had insurance to cover those massive expenses.
And while comparing prepping to insurance is still a useful analogy, there may be a more appropriate analogy these days: prepping sets your conditions for success should hard times come.
What do I mean? Perhaps it’s best for a little context. Watch the last twenty minutes of the following Shawn Ryan Show episode where he interviews Michael Yon mostly about the migration problem, but the final part of the show discusses the coming famine as he sees it:
Assuming you watched it (and even if you didn’t), there are some disturbing conclusions stated by Michael Yon, specifically about an orchestrated famine, but what I wanted to take away from the interview above was the part about conditions for success.
In a nutshell, if you want to win, then you need to set yourself up to win; you must set the conditions for your success.
I’d say that we, as preppers, understand this to some degree. At least we understand it more than most sheeple do. But if I’m being perfectly honest, I’m immensely jealous of those who don’t have a care in the world; those who are oblivious to the state of things; those who are too selfish to give a damn about anything other than themselves. Sometimes I wonder what the world would be like if more good people would start to care about the state of things and speak up. Because it feels an awful lot like we, me included, tend to “go along to get along” in a sense. And by then it’s probably too late.
Let me step off my soapbox and get to the point.
With regards to preparedness, let me illustrate conditions for success by asking you some questions. How can you be expected to succeed if, in a time of crisis…
- you or your family are instantly hungry because you didn’t have any food in the pantry?
- you’ve got diarrhea (or worse) because you didn’t have potable water stored or the ability to make it so?
- you’ve made yourself deathly ill because you simply didn’t have any hand soap to clean up with?
- you trip and injure yourself because you didn’t have a flashlight or batteries to make it work?
- you’re worried about family that didn’t make it home or others who live a distance away because you didn’t have the ability to communicate with them?
- you lose all your supplies because there were burned, flooded, stolen, or otherwise left unusable because you weren’t able to protect it?
The list could go on and on. And these questions should be fairly obvious to preppers. But it never hurts to have them asked. Ultimately, setting your conditions for success isn’t entirely about having stuff or even making plans, both of which are useful as a prepper. It’s really about asking the right questions and taking appropriate actions to mitigate foreseeable problems.
To conclude my thoughts, perhaps it’s best to ask: What are my conditions for success should a [fill in the blank] disaster strike?
As an example, if I live where earthquakes are likely, am I setting myself up for success by stashing all of my supplies in one location for convenience? What happens if it all gets crushed or becomes inaccessible after a quake?
For another example, if I live where hurricanes are possible, am I setting myself up for success by not having a bug out plan (and supplies) ready to go?
As a final example, if I live alone, am I setting myself up for success by continuing to go it alone? Or would I be better off forming some alliances or friendships should hard times come?
Whatever your situation is, I suggest you begin to think in terms of success. Question what you’re doing. Is it a successful strategy or are you being stubborn or doing the same thing because that’s what you’ve done for years? I don’t know the answers, but I do know the question…
What are your conditions for success?
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