There's nothing civil about this war.
Yes, positive thinking prepares us against lots of bad things.* Also the serenity prayer is very wise.
But positive thinking can be overdone. I've learned from Prof. Martin Seligman's great book "Learned optimism" that risk is a criterion. If the risk is high, don't overdo optimism, then pessimism makes sense. If you can only win, be an optimist. By nature, I'm a pessimist, always see the worst that could happen. Sometimes this brings me down without use. With the help of this book, I've learned how to shift my mindset more to optimism in case it is healthy.
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* After re-reading it, I find this sentence ambiguous and questionable, so I want to add: Positive thinking does not reduce the probability or the objective damage of course. But it helps to better endure the damage if it's there. And often it gives more energy than pessimism, at least more positive energy.
Last edited by P30; 10-05-2021 at 09:52 AM.
I probably should have specified worst case scenario as it relates to personal protection arena. I can't imagine a worst case scenario than having a massive stroke or incident that causes me to be paralyzed from the neck down and be a physical and financial burden to my family for the rest of my life but that wasn't the context of what people have been using when saying they prepare or consider their worst case scenario particularly on PF.
Ironic. One of those guys forgot the message after doing the video.Originally Posted by blues
”But in the end all of these ideas just manufacture new criminals when the problem isn't a lack of criminals.” -JRB
Worst case scenario for me in my current rural living environment would be my failure to protect my wife (and secondarily, dog), from harm from an intruder who enters our home, or an unexpected encounter outside the home. My job is to stand between them and harm. Everything else is secondary.
Inside the home I've shown my wife where to retreat to, and take possession of a firearm in the event I am unable to remove the threat.
I don't dwell on it...but I try to stay prepared mentally, physically and emotionally.
There's nothing civil about this war.
I surmise we are currently living in a relative worst case scenario. Ammo prices are ridiculous. Primers are impossible to find and when you do they are 5+ times the price they should be. Socialism is steamrolling it's way into our society. We have a president who should be on a milk carton as a silver alert. China is demonstrating it's military power and Xi has global domination desires. Meanwhile the US military is focusing on wokeness. I could go on and on.
Last edited by JohnO; 10-05-2021 at 09:51 AM.
Having just watched the movie "No Escape" with Owen Wilson, that's pretty much my worst-case scenario: being in a foreign country where I/we don't speak much/any of the language and my family is visually identifiable, and something large-scale goes down.
Haven't every been in anything like this, but there was one time where there was a little unrest, and the rest of my family could "blend" if needed, but I'm a big, goony white guy and stick out like a sore thumb.
From Older Offspring after a discussion of coffee:
"If it doesn't come from the Kaffa province of Ethiopia, it's just hot roasted-bean juice."
My worst case scenario is being in a position to watch helplessly as something horrible happens to my wife or family. Not far off of that would be watching helplessly as something happens to a bunch of my Soldiers.
Just behind that, is somehow being put in a position where my oath and duty to the U.S. Army is somehow at odds with my moral compass.
I've invested a lot of personal time and focus on ensuring the first doesn't happen. Powder dry, win 100% of the fights we avoid, staying away from dumb shit at dumb times and dumb places, etc.
It's the cornerstone of my responsibilities as an NCO to ensure my troops are effective and safe. The worst might still happen, no matter what we plan for or train for, and I hope I'm never faced with having to accept that.
The latter, well, that's the shit that sometimes keeps me up at night. But despite the chicken-little screaming about that across wide swaths of 'news' media claiming we're close to that, we're honestly very far away from that possibility. But the steps taken toward that possibility, however few that may be, certainly give cause for worry.
Everything else - from the higher prices on everything to the global uncertainty generated by the talking heads on every fucking screen trying to feed the monster of my confirmation bias for the sake of advertising heartburn medication... it sucks but it's pretty far from 'worst case scenario'.
Many acquaintances and friends have asked me things like 'what will you do when (insert crazy disaster/lawlessness etc here) happens?'
I simply say, 'choose wisely from the options I've developed for myself based on having enough food/water/etc in the house to get by for a long time, and plenty of means to defend it, and the means to evac and travel light if we absolutely had to'.
So build up some options for the 'what if' on those worst case scenarios and decide accordingly. Stay armed, stay switched on, and otherwise do your best to stop fucking worrying about it all.
If you can't help but keep worrying about it, turn off the fucking screens for awhile. Use your phone for texting and calls only, use your ipad to take pictures and video of you shooting some dot torture with a Ruger .22, and grill some steaks for your family or a group of friends and tell them to bring the beer.
Enjoy both good drink and good company by laughing about the good times and making new good times, and avoid making social gatherings into a group bitching session about the whole world beyond the therapeutic 5 minute rehashing over the first or second beer. After that first 5 minutes, it's not therapeutic anymore. So verbal judo back to talk of steaks, beers, good whisky, pretty girls, good kids, cool cars and trucks, and good music.
Life's too fucking short to spend all of it fuckin' worrying.
Missing the cues of the ambush and fighting from behind the curve, wounded.
“Remember, being healthy is basically just dying as slowly as possible,” Ricky Gervais
I think you should have posted this in Mindset and Tactics.
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