I like a lot of this, including that ordered list, but I'm afraid that it's largely something that only becomes clear in retrospect.
Most people enter the pursuit around step 6 because:lots-of-reasons. This is good and bad. Good in that guns are the gateway drug to overall better preparation, better (in my view, anyway) political leanings, and frankly just spending time with a better class of people. Bad in that it comes with all of the baggage being discussed elsewhere in this thread.
One other good/bad, and related to this, is the social aspects. I, and a lot of other people I've observed, got pretty caught up in and surrounded myself with a pretty big echo chamber of people, hobbies, websites, reading, entertainment, etc. that all revolved around guns, fear, preparedness, tactics, paranoia, self defense, bug out, social collapse, etc. it took some life events that made me break out of that chamber to get me to stand back and look at the whole thing more objectively. Made me look at the real numbers and statistics in a more objective way, made me realize that the industry is exactly that; an industry. and what that means for all of the rest of this stuff. This is that phase 8, 9, 10... 25 that I mentioned earlier in the thread. that, in turn, makes the ordered list above make sense to me *now* but probably wouldn't until relatively recently (maybe the last 4 years or so) of my total "gunz" journey (of the last 25+ years or so). and frankly, I'd edit that list pretty hard core.
- diet
- exercise
- mental health
- social and interpersonal relationships
- career/job
- finance & retirement
- Criminology/Street Smarts/Physical Preparedness
- Defensive Driving
- Emergency Medical
- Legal Preparation, Aftermath and Rules of Engagement
- Less Lethal skills
- Handgun Carry Course
- Handgun Skills and Tactics Course
- Defensive Tactics