Do you feel like you’re living in a crazy world? I first penned this letter on December 2011. Back then, I was very concerned about our crazy world and the direction that I saw it going. The signs have been there for a while. For those paying attention, looking, researching and reading, you could easily find a myriad of problems that point to how fragile our world, country, state… is. But now, the problems are glaring and in your face! You really have to be Mary Poppins to think there isn’t “something” wrong! It seems like our world is going crazy!
From our economy to terrorism, to natural disasters, to deadly viruses, crime and more, you can easily find reasons to be concerned for yourself and your family!
There Are Major Problems in Our Crazy World!
The thing is, many of the problems that can arise because of these issues can be mitigated if you just put a little effort into being prepared. Many of you won’t though because you are too distracted with “living the dream” and having fun or you just are irresponsible! Responsibility is a problem in today’s world! We all want the government or some other entity to come through for us! And what if they don’t? Are you willing to have your family staring you in the face, wanting to know what to do because they are in a desperate situation that could have been avoided or not as bad because you weren’t man enough to make some decisions and get off your butt?
People always ask, what if I prepare and nothing happens? Well I say, that is good! You don’t really want anything to happen! Or, you don’t want terrorist to hack the electric grid and be without power for however long! You don’t want the economy to tank and possibly lose your job! Neither do you don’t want the drought or an earthquake in California to affect the food supply so much that you forgo buying fruit because it is too expensive! You don’t want any of that stuff to happen! But if it does….you want to be ready!
It’s Crazy, So What Should You Do?
Being prepared doesn’t mean you go buy a lot of camo, guns and go out into the woods. Being prepared or living a prepared lifestyle just means you live responsibility by planning, thinking ahead and putting some things back for a rainy day! There are so many aspects to it and each family is going to be different! But failing to plan and prepare is setting your family up to fail!
You will tell that my letter below is a lot “softer” than what I’ve written above! Back then, I didn’t want to freak people out. I wanted them to think critically! But now, I think people need a wake-up call!
After you read the letter below, I would be happy to answer any questions or point you to resources that can explain your question in better detail!
Peace,
Todd
July 2019
An Open Letter to Family & Friends
I’m writing this letter because I care about you. Please take a few minutes to read it and think about what I’m saying.
Why the Letter?
Our lives are crazy and sometimes it seems like we live in a crazy world! We take care of our family, work, eat, play chauffeur, pay the bills, etc. When we have a little bit of free time, we like to just veg in front of the TV and watch some brain-numbing pictures flicker across the screen. We can go at it like this for days, weeks and even months, not knowing what is going on in the world outside our local community and just get by with the talk around the water cooler.
And when we take life in these little chunks, separate blocks of our time and attention, it seems a little bit more manageable. We move from one task, event, errand, or chore to the other.
The problem is when we look at our lives from a big-picture perspective. What if our lives, all of a sudden changed? What if the stress of the day came bearing down at you all at once? How could this happen? This can easily happen during an emergency. I’m not talking about your son just stuffed his GI Joe down the toilet, or the dog is out of food emergency. I’m talking about the BIG stuff.
The Big Emergency
The BIG emergency is the one that stops you in your tracks. It can be personal, based in your local community or worldwide. But it is the one that everything else stops and all resources and energy are put towards it.
The problem is that most people are not prepared for a BIG one.
Prepared?
Are you and your family most people? Do you have an emergency fund for financial emergencies? Or, do you have insurance for medical emergencies? Do you have food and water if there is a food supply/transportation emergency? What about having another means of cooking and preparing your food if utilities weren’t available? Do you have first aid supplies and extra medicine on hand? Can you rely on some basic skills that could help you: fire starting, water purification, gardening, first aid, etc.?
This is the whole reason for my letter. I want to help you see the importance of being prepared and to start being more self-reliant. It’s not too hard, but it does take time, planning and effort. But then again, what would the time, planning and effort that you put in ahead of time be worth in the middle of an emergency? You’ll be glad you did!
Getting Prepared Action Steps:
Make a plan – What are you preparing for? What needs to be done? Don’t look at the magnitude of the plan, that can be overwhelming. Take it in chunks. In reality, you will never be “prepared.” You can be “not prepared” or “overly prepared,” but never “perfectly prepared.” Consider the basics: financial, medical, etc…but also keep in mind your region of the country; hurricanes, tornados, earthquakes, fires, etc…
Set goals – When do you want _____ accomplished?
- Get a 3 day supply of food. Then move to a 3 week supply.
- Revisit insurance: house, vehicle, medical, life, etc…
- Think about home and personal security.
- Start an emergency fund – 3-6 months of expenses
- Start a garden
- Take a class: first-aid, sewing, gardening, firearm, wilderness survival
- Watch some videos on Youtube (search preparedness)
- Read blogs and articles on “preparedness” and “prepping
- Listen to Podcasts that deal with the topic of preparedness.
Get active – go meet your goals!
Warning
The world of preparedness/prepping can be an addictive one. It can suck you in, mess with your emotions and get you seeing are already crazy world in an even crazier way! It is always best to approach preparedness within community. You should go it alone only if no one else is willing. Eventually, they will realize that you were right, even if that is in the midst of a storm.
It’s A Crazy World and It’s Fragile!
It is not in the scope of this letter to discuss all the possible emergency scenarios that you should prepare for. But outside of regional, natural disasters, it is important to me to briefly mention our global situation. Things outside our local community have gone from bad to worse! At first, we might not care about what is going on in some Asian or European country, but the fact is that we are ALL tied into each other now. What happens over there, affects us over here.
There are many “End of the World as We Know It” type scenarios out there. One such scenario is an economic collapse. Someone recently replied to me and said, “Yes, times can get hard, but we have been through it before during the Great Depression.” The fact is that it is way different this time. Our country didn’t have the debt that we have now. And, if for some reason the world loses faith in our government’s ability to pay its debts, we are up the creek. It really isn’t too far-fetched to imagine this happening if you’ll look into it. The concern has gone beyond the tin-foil hat people. Just research it!
Do Something
Please take this letter seriously. If you prepare and don’t need it, the worst is that you have some food (food costs are going up/buy now at cheaper prices) and other supplies. But if you ever find you are in a position that you do need it, you and your loved ones will be glad you were prepared!
Peace,
Todd
Thanks for caring enough to republish the letter, for I was not one of your readers in 2011. Maybe if people would think about the teotwawki events that have already happened in their lives it would set their mentality for the ultimate teotwawki. My first one was when I was when I was seven years old my grandfather, the greatest light in my life at that time, died unexpectedly. Eleven years later I was drafted…Vietnam…the loss of good friends and good soldiers. Later the loss of a sister to a drunk driver…the death of my son to pneumonia…divorce…a year or two of not giving a crap if the world stopped turning. My life has been no better and hopefully no worse than others out there, but we forget sometimes just how fragile and often futile life can be. But in all those so called hard times there was never a shortage of food. Even in death people had funerals or body bags. There were other people in our lives to help smooth the way. We always knew no matter the hardship a better day was out there somewhere. But that will not be the case when the mega-teotwawki arrives. Death, but no flower or flag draped coffin, pneumonia, but no penicillin, wounds, but no medic, dog eat dog, but not nearly enough food for the pack, money, but nothing to buy, and how for that spiral takes us is totally dependent upon our preparedness, skills, and mental toughness. We all have to omni-prepare for the fact the day will come when there will never be a better day to found for many years to come. thanks again.
Messenger and Todd, You have said it all and I have been preparing for a long time as money comes along. I will never feel like it is enough, so many things can and probably will happen. I am a Christian and I have a Christian friend that says, “God knows my needs, he will take care of me.” Then I wonder if I am wrong and she is right.
You are right, not your friend. There are far too many verses throughout the bible that teach us to prep for the lean times and to keep a critical eye for the future. In the book of Jasher, which did not make it into our bible, the populace of Egypt did not keep an eye on their preps during the seven good years and they spoiled. Joseph kept a watchful eye on his and the governments and the rest is history. Christ gives us the ability to take care of ourselves, but he expects and will tolerate nothing less than us taking full advantage of that ability and preparing for the future…good or bad! God bless and see you at HIS feet. thanks
Suzie,
When people say that, I say….
He knows your car needs gas, so don’t put any in your tank. He knows you need food to survive, so don’t eat. He knows you need to pay your bills, so let Him take care of them for you.
God has given us a brain to use. And like Messenger said above, there are plenty of Scriptures that talk about being prepared.
I hope that helps.
Peace,
Todd
I like to use this one, “If God is taking care of your needs, why do plan to go to work tomorrow?
If God expects us to use the brain He gave us, then why do you think scriptures are necessary for permission to act upon steps to survive? ….Bob Clark
Just look at history, God has let people that are not prepared die, millions of times. No reason to think he will not continue to do the same.
I am worried about upcoming crises however, I feel frustrated by my situation. I live alone, am 65, female, still teach, live on the top story of a two story apartment in southern California and have a limited income. I have put some food aside, but I feel completely defenseless if rioter or gangs came after my things. Guns and ammo are incredibly expensive and California is not known as a gun friendly state. My family live about an hour away, so I don’t want to be too far from them, but none of them prep. I don’t have space for a garden or even any earth nearby as everything is concrete.
I don’t see many prep sites that consider people in my situation, but I would love any suggestions you have.
Denise,
Have you thought about asking some of your family members who live an hour away if you could leave some of your preps there for an emergency? Of course, you would have to trust them.
If they have land, you could offer to help them setup a garden, put it on a timer and let them know that they could have some of the produce. You would go there once a week, maybe on a Saturday morning to tend to it.
The other thing would be to start thinking of alternative places you could go, like do you attend a church group? Are there friends there who own a home that might be more secured that you could go to in case there was an emergency?
There is always hope. The key is to start networking and thinking outside of the box. Being a teacher, you can do that! 😉
Peace,
Todd
Denise,
Todd’s suggestions are good for you to do while you plan to leave! Take your retirement nest egg and get out of California as soon as possible.
I moved away from the city 2 years ago to a small town. I was able to make the move in order to lower my cost of living (I’m semi-retired and 60 yrs old) by purchasing a large manufactured home. A MH home may not be ideal, but I own it outright, and the small space rent for my home, compared to what I used to pay for rent in a large apartment complex, has afforded me most of my preps and a higher quality of life. I live 2 blocks from a world-class library and a nature walk. Deer come into my park every day. I am just about debt-free and have already scouted my bug-out location from my home and could survive living out of my car if need be. I have new friends, a church community, and I’m surrounded by people older than myself who have skills like gardening, woodworking, sewing, canning food, car repair – I am learning from them to make up for lost time. Choose a small town well away from the larger cities and military targets. Select for proximity to food and water. Is there a river, pond, lake or reservoir within walking or biking distance? Take an inventory of what you own that will fit into your new life in a small town and sell everything else. Once you move, plug into your new location as maybe a substitute teacher or private tutor. Or start a small business from your favorite hobby. You’ll get along just fine!
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We are in our early seventies,and are what most prepper would consider to be very well supplied.The most distressing thing in our life is that our son and his wife refuse to think about anything related to preparedness. Worst of all, there are three beautiful grand children. The adults suffer from normalcy bias, but the kids don’t have clue about what is going on in our world. We have tried several approaches to help them get started,but nothing works.If any one out there has an idea or a thought that might help please let us know.God Bless and Long Live The Republic.
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