I think I’ve finally done it. No, I haven’t solved world peace or determined precisely what Dark Energy is but I do believe I figured out how to truly be prepared.
Are you ready for it? It’s a shocker…
And it’s not about realizing anything miraculous or even about planning for any one scenario. Instead, it’s about taking a thought or concept to complete exhaustion. In the business world it would be similar to the “5 Whys” question which is basically asking the “why…” question over and over until you can no longer do so and, therefore, have found the root cause as to “why” something happened (or didn’t happen).
The concept is a good one to employ and one that can be applied to prepping. But, rather than asking “why” you’re simply trying to go as far as you can with any one concept or scenario.
Take the car troubles I’ve had over the years. A few years ago I went on a 200+ mile trip and had a flat tire. It turns out that I didn’t have an appropriate lug nut wrench even though I had seemingly everything else. Where did it go, I don’t know.
Recently, and after switching to a SUV, I found out that I didn’t have a wheel lock key to remove one of the five lug nuts on my tires, again, after getting a flat hundreds of miles from home.
Even more recently I found out that even though I added a scissor jack to my tire-changing preps that it wasn’t quite appropriate to jack up the SUV up in order to remove the tire! I actually needed a piece of 4×4 to get it done. I obviously didn’t have this particular problem with the sedan I had years ago.
You might be saying: “Stop travelling for goodness sakes!” I hear you. But disasters (big or small) don’t care where I’m at or what I’m doing at the time. They’re going to strike and I have to be able to deal with them.
I’ve found, however, that I’m still more reactive to emergencies rather than proactive. I can see that I start down a road to prepare for something and do “just enough” to feel like I’m prepared but never quite take it to complete exhaustion.
If we go back to the tire changing example, I’m sure I could have dealt with these issues well before it became one if I’d just bothered to ask a few logical questions:
- Do I REALLY have the proper equipment to change a tire (e.g., lug wrench, jack, lock key, etc)?
- Can I remove the tire (e.g., need the lock key)? And have actually tried it rather than assumed it?
- Can I replace/repair a tire on my own if need be (e.g., tire plug kit, tire sealant, a complete spare)?
- Is my spare in good shape, aired up, etc (e.g., tire pump of some sort)?
- Can I air up a flat tire (e.g., I have an air pump)?
- Can I call for help or a tow (e.g., AAA service or perhaps a friend or family member)?
Best of all, I could have actually tried to replace a tire (either using the spare or just to have removed one of the tires) to ensure I had everything I needed to get it done and there were no holes in the process such as the locking lug nut or the fact that my scissors jack was too short.
Again, this may seem like an overly simplistic example but it’s precisely these types of scenarios where we learn! Personally, I learned that even though I had a variety of tools and supplies to deal with tire flats, I didn’t actually have what I needed (at that particular time) to get it done. And it was ALWAYS just one thing I was missing. Go figure.
The point is that if I’d bothered to not only ask the questions but to truly ask as many conceivable questions as I can about changing a flat tire I would have quickly found the flaws in my preps and this blog post would never have happened. 😉
No doubt this strategy can be used for anything regarding your preps, you just have to ask. Better yet… you just have to DO!
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