“The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.”

 ‘Resilience refers to a system’s ability to accommodate variable and unexpected conditions without catastrophic failure, or “the capacity to absorb shocks gracefully” (Foster, 1993).  Security refers to freedom from danger or fear, which is an important goal of resilience.’ – http://www.vtpi.org/tdm/tdm88.htm

Freedom implies an absence of restraint or compulsion, liberty implies the power to choose among alternatives rather than merely being unrestrained.  It is interesting to note that liberty can be extinguished in pursuit of freedom, depending on what is meant by ‘free’.

I believe in order to choose your direction you need to know what your definition of “resilience” is, and why you want to accomplish it.  I believe the following questions will help. 

What are the systems you are dependent on and want to be less dependent upon? 

Why are you dependent on them?

Why do you want to be less dependent on them?

I did not begin with these questions in mind, but I wish I had.  It would have kept me more on task and helped prevent me from wondering down a bunch of really cool paths (from getting sidetracked), but paths I am not yet ready for because I haven’t yet completed my fundamentals. 

Begin right where you are.  Some interpret the famous quote “The Journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step” by Lao Tzu as “The Journey of a thousand miles begins beneath your feet” or”…right where you stand”.  Before taking the first step you should choose a direction.  Before choosing a direction you should arm yourself with a compass – some information that will help guide you in making your decisions.  Below you will find the thing that I am using as my compass.  I took this from “The Survival Podcast” website (with permission of course) and it really is spot on.

Threat Probability Matrix

The rules of the matrix are quite simple, the less people effected by an event the more likely it is to occur to an individual. That statement may seem counterintuitive but it really isn’t, just consider the following line

Individual – Localized – Small Region – Large Region – National – Global

Now think of one disaster for each of these and ask yourself how likely you are to actually experience this event in the next year or next ten years. You can think of any disaster and then just assign it to one of the six categories and you will quickly see that in most instances the larger the effected area, the lower the probability that it will actually happen. Here are some examples…

• Individual – Job Loss
• Localized – Damage From Strong Storms
• Small Region – City Riots Spreading To The Suburbs
• Large Region – Large Scale Hurricane Damage To A Coastal Region
• National – A Well Organized Terrorist Attack on 25 Major U.S. Cities
• Global – A Rapid Climate Shift Brings On An Ice Age

–          Jack Spirko, TSP –  http://www.thesurvivalpodcast.com/articles-by-jack/tenet-six

A survivalist may have 10,000 rounds of ammo for each of their guns but hasn’t updated their resume in 6 years.  What good is that ammo if the disaster that strikes isn’t global economic meltdown but the loss of a job?  That would be a personal economic meltdown and the resume would be a far better tool for dealing with it than the guns and ammo.  Now sure, the resume doesn’t mean squat if the economy collapses but which of those two scenarios has a greater likelihood of occurring?

So I am going to have to take a half day off of work today due to a sick kid, my wife and I split the day because she doesn’t get paid if she doesn’t work.  I was off yesterday, and in the environment which I work I feel uncomfortable taking this afternoon off, even though I got to work at 6 AM and will put in 6 hours plus use ½ vacation day.  It’s ridiculous to have to dread using a vacation day for a sick kid.  It’s also offensive that “they” refuse to allow me to do my job remotely.  There are many employees that can, and there are contract workers (temps) that can do it.  There is nothing about my job that requires me to be in my cube to do it, nothing.  There seems to be no company policy around it, it seems simply to be a matter of who you know.  I despise the environment I work in.  Moral is in the toilet, you can’t believe anything management says (like reducing salaries by 6% to avoid layoffs, then having in excess of 40 people laid off one month later), the “more with less” attitude constantly being forced down our throats, never knowing where the axe will fall next, etc.  What it must be like to work in an environment where you treated like an adult and treated with dignity.

Even if you are one that does work in that type of environment or for that type of company, I think you should pay attention to this video on downward class migration.  Coming soon to a society near you!

So what’s the point?  Be prepared.  I may have said this before but it bears repeating:  I am more of a resilientist than a true prepper or survivalist.  However there is a lot of crossover, so much so that at times it is hard to tell the difference.  I think my distinction between the two lies in the purpose or approach of each.  A prepper is planning for disaster(s) that they feel are eminent, whereas a resilientist is looking at having more liberty and freedom in their life.  And a survivalist is prepping for the worst possible scenario to happen.  A survivalist may have 10,000 rounds of ammo for each of their guns but hasn’t updated their resume in 6 years.  What good is that ammo if the disaster that strikes isn’t global economic meltdown but the loss of a job?  That would be a personal economic meltdown and the resume would be a far better tool for dealing with it than the guns and ammo.  Now sure, the resume doesn’t mean squat if the economy collapses but which of those two scenarios has a greater likelihood of occurring?

I think Resilientist, Prepper, and Survivalist are varying degrees of the same mentality.  Perhaps the difference stems from the motivating factor/driving force (belief) that leads us to do what we do.

I need to be able to live my life on my terms.  I no longer want to be a debt serf.