MMXXVI
צָפָה
LG's Philosophy of Preparedness
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LG's Philosophy of Preparedness
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Preparedness, to me, has never really been about fear. I'm not interested in sitting around waiting for civilization to collapse, and I don't think preparedness means piling up a mountain of gear just so you can say you have it.
Although, to be fair, if you can have a bunker, you should probably have a bunker.
For me, preparedness comes down to resilience, self-reliance, redundancy, and giving your family options when the systems we normally depend on begin to degrade, fail, or fall offline.
The question I keep coming back to is pretty simple: What happens when the things we normally depend upon aren't there?
The electricity goes out. A tree blocks the road. Fuel gets difficult to find. Grocery shelves get thin. Communications become unreliable. Maybe the water stops flowing. Maybe it lasts six hours, maybe six days, maybe longer. My goal is to make those situations as uneventful as possible.
Around here in the O.N.T., preparedness starts with ordinary things: storms, tornadoes, ice, flooding, fallen trees, extended power outages, extreme temperatures, blocked roads, and occasional supply or communications problems. There are bigger possibilities too—cyberattacks, infrastructure failures, economic trouble, geopolitical events, civil unrest—but I don't think preparedness ought to begin with the apocalypse.
It should begin with Tuesday.
If the power disappears for several days, can your household keep functioning? If a winter storm blocks the roads, can everybody stay home without immediately needing something? If the grocery store doesn't restock for a while, does that become an emergency for your family? If the water stops flowing, what comes next?
That's how I look at it: Handle the probable first, then build outward toward the possible.
My military, federal, and information warfare background taught me something that carries over remarkably well into preparedness:
Never let one failure take down the entire system.
In the IW space we'd call that eliminating a single point of failure. I think a household ought to operate on much the same principle.
The basics deserve some redundancy:
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Water
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Food
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Heat and power
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Cooking
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Communications
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Transportation
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Security
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Medical needs
You don't need five backups for everything. But if something is essential to keeping your family alive, safe, warm, fed, or informed, having another way to accomplish it makes sense. And for a few really important things, I like having a backup to the backup.
That isn't paranoia. That's resilience.
Where you live certainly matters, but I don't measure preparedness in acreage. The better question is whether the place you live gives you enough capability to do what needs to be done. Can you obtain water? Can you produce at least some food? Can you safely store necessities? Can you repair things? Can you provide heat? Can you stay put for a while if circumstances outside your home get messy?
Capability matters more than square footage.
Water comes before food. You need potable water available and some way to obtain, filter, treat, or replenish more if your normal source becomes unavailable. Food works the same way. I prefer layers: what we normally eat, pantry goods, longer-term staples, preserved foods and, where practical, the ability to grow or produce some of our own.
My rule is pretty simple: Store what you eat, and eat what you store.
Power matters too, but energy is bigger than electricity. You need to think about how you'll heat, cook, make light, and get necessary work done. Fuel is part of that picture, but having fuel isn't enough. You need to know what depends on it, how much you reasonably need, how to store it safely, and what you'll do if it isn't available.
Communications are another one. Cell phones and the internet are wonderful—right up until they aren't. At minimum, a household ought to have some way of receiving reliable information when normal networks aren't working. For people willing to put in the effort, radio adds another layer.
But that brings up something I think gets overlooked far too often: owning equipment isn't the same thing as being prepared. You have to know how to use it.
Which leads to one of my favorite preparedness principles:
Skills beat stuff.
Many moons ago, when I was in Basic Training at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, Drill Sergeant Steele drilled a lesson into us that I've never forgotten:
“It's not about feelings, it's about standards.”
That applies here. Preparedness isn't about whether you feel ready. Either the equipment works or it doesn't. Either you know how to operate it or you don't. Either your household can function when something fails or it can't.
A generator that has never been tested isn't much of a plan. A radio you don't know how to operate isn't really a communications system. A chainsaw that hasn't run in three years isn't storm preparedness. A pile of stored food nobody knows how to cook isn't a very good food plan, and owning a first-aid kit certainly doesn't make somebody medically competent.
Learn your house and know how the utilities work. Learn some basic repairs and first aid. Maintain the equipment you rely on. Know another way to cook, heat, and communicate. Learn the roads around you, and know your own limitations before an emergency teaches them to you.
Gear extends capability. Knowledge creates it.
There's another saying that has stayed with me for decades. Back during my Army Team Chief days in Germany, I was walking across post in Darmstadt when I passed some guy wearing a red T-shirt with white lettering across it. It said:
“Someplace, somewhere, someone is practicing more than you, and when you meet, they will win.”
I have no idea who that guy was and never talked to him, but I've remembered that shirt ever since because it's true far beyond athletics or the military. Skills get rusty when you don't use them. Equipment deteriorates when you don't maintain it. Plans that are never tested have a funny way of failing when you finally need them.
Readiness has to be maintained.
Security is no different. Good security starts long before anybody ever thinks about a weapon. Awareness, access control, visibility, deterrence, detection, communications, and plain old good judgment all matter. The best security problem is the one that never makes it to your front door.
That doesn't mean living suspicious of everybody around you. It means paying attention and making your home difficult to surprise, exploit, or disrupt.
Preparedness also requires some situational awareness. That doesn't mean jumping every time somebody posts another doomer headline; most of those stories disappear within a few days. But severe weather, grid problems, fuel disruptions, cyberattacks, transportation problems, regional emergencies, and supply-chain issues are worth watching.
I'm not trying to predict the future. I'm trying to recognize developing circumstances while there are still choices to make.
And one of the biggest advantages preparedness gives you is something remarkably simple:
The ability to stay home.
I've become more convinced of that over the years. During a lot of emergencies, the safest trip is the one you never have to make. If you've already got what your family needs, you don't have to run to the store with everybody else, sit in a fuel line, or be out on bad roads unless there's a genuine reason to be there.
COVID drove that lesson home. Whatever anybody thinks about the pandemic itself or the government's handling of it, normal life changed very quickly. Workplaces shut down or restricted access, stores were strained, and travel and ordinary routines became more complicated. People who could simply stay home for a while had options, and people who could work from home had another huge advantage.
That lesson stuck with me: if your job can reasonably be done remotely, maintain the ability to work remotely if you possibly can.
A usable home workspace, dependable communications, and the ability to keep earning an income without traveling to a workplace are preparedness assets too. A disruption doesn't have to be another pandemic. It could be weather, bad roads, fuel shortages, civil disturbances, illness, or something none of us has thought of yet. If your occupation allows remote work, build that capability before you need it.
Preparedness creates margin, and margin creates calm.
Unfortunately, preparedness has picked up all kinds of stereotypes over the years. Say the word and somebody immediately pictures gas masks, bunkers, and a guy predicting the end of civilization next Thursday. But most preparedness is painfully ordinary.
A stocked pantry, a garden, maintained vehicles, first-aid knowledge, emergency savings, useful tools, and knowing how to take care of your family when something goes sideways are all preparedness. You don't have to believe the world is ending. You only have to recognize that normal life occasionally stops being normal.
And you don't build preparedness in one heroic trip to China-Mart. You build it a little at a time. Add some food. Improve your water situation. Learn another skill. Maintain something. Fix something. Improve communications. Strengthen security. Plant something. Then do it again.
That reminds me of Coach Les Hultgren, my high-school football and basketball coach back in Kansas. He used to tell me:
“Grey, you either improve or you get passed by.”
I've never forgotten that one either. It's just as true here. There's always something that can be learned, maintained, tested, repaired, or improved. Preparedness is never really finished. I'm not looking for perfection.
I'm looking for constant forward progress.
Eventually the question shifts. Instead of asking, “What will we do if something happens?” you start asking, “How long could we function comfortably if something happens?”
Those are two very different places to be.
And ultimately, none of this is really about generators, radios, land, fuel, food storage, tools, or any other possession. Those are just tools.
The mission is protecting your family and preserving as much normalcy as possible when circumstances become abnormal.
For me, there is also a biblical responsibility involved. Scripture says:
“The prudent sees danger and hides himself, but the simple go on and suffer for it.”
- Proverbs 22:3
I don't read that as an invitation to fear. I read it as wisdom. The prudent person sees trouble coming and takes reasonable steps before it arrives.
Yeshua likewise tells His followers to remain watchful and ready (Matthew 24:42–44). And those of us responsible for families have something of a shepherd's responsibility. A good shepherd doesn't wait until the storm is overhead before wondering where the flock will shelter. He watches, knows what has been entrusted to him, anticipates trouble, provides, and protects.
Proverbs puts it this way:
“Know well the condition of your flocks, and give attention to your herds.”
- Proverbs 27:23
That principle reaches far beyond livestock. If people have been entrusted to your care, then feeding them, sheltering them, protecting them, and guiding them through difficult circumstances is part of taking that responsibility seriously.
Preparedness isn't fear of tomorrow. It is faithful stewardship today.
Faith and preparation aren't opposites. Noah trusted God-and built the ark. Joseph trusted God-and stored grain before the famine came. The prudent person sees danger and acts, and the shepherd watches the flock.
We don't prepare because food, fuel, equipment, land, or our own abilities can guarantee our safety. They can't. We prepare because wisdom tells us to make responsible use of the time, knowledge, resources, and opportunities God has given us, and then we trust Him with everything outside our control.
If circumstances become abnormal, I want my family to have enough time, knowledge, and capability to make deliberate decisions instead of desperate ones.
To me, that's one of the greatest things preparedness buys you: time, options, independence, confidence, and peace of mind.
You don't have to prepare for everything. You simply need to become harder to disrupt.
That's my philosophy of preparedness:
Prepare today so that when something happens tomorrow, your family isn't starting from zero.
And above all, remember where our ultimate security lies:
“He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will abide in the shadow of the Almighty.”
- Psalm 91:1
Prepare Today | Prevail Tomorrow
Lee
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In Congress, July 4, 1776.
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America, When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of
Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.
He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.
Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.
We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.
