In the last post I listed out four principles for beginning preppers. In this post, I’ll dive a little further into the first one, Don’t Freak Out.
It is easy to get spun up into a fearful, panicky state-of-mind. We are surrounded by doom and gloom. News media tells us how vulnerable we are to everything. Social media (along with news media) spread misinformation, and disinformation, like wildfire. Information travels so quickly nowadays that there is very little “fact” being put out to the masses. When the facts do come to light, it is either too late to reverse the flow, or it’s old news and no-one really cares to deal with getting the story straight. But I digress.
So many people see or hear how the world is going to end tomorrow from some threat that they don’t understand and they run out and impulse-buy a bunch of stuff that makes them feel like they have gotten themselves prepared. They haven’t. Operating out of emotion can be dangerous. Fear is an emotion. Fear can be good or bad. It is perfectly good to be fearful of a grizzly bear charging at you while alone in the wilderness. This fear lets you know that you are in danger. This fear tells you that you need to do something to get out of danger and to protect yourself immediately. However, if you live in the desert and you’re deathly afraid of being attacked by penguins, this would be an irrational fear.
A couple of things to consider: 1.) if it is out of your control, there is no point worrying about it because there is nothing you can do about it; 2.) If it is in your control, you can do something about it, so do something about it and you won’t have to worry about it.
I know this is much more easily said than done. A big benefit of prepping has to do with mitigating fear. The more effort and progress we put toward preparedness for a certain event, the less fearful we are if and when said event should occur. If you’re afraid of freezing to death, learn how to make a fire. In the next post I’ll get into the Getting Focused principle. This is where you’ll be really making so inroads into what you’re preparing for and how to start off with a realistic focus.
