By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail. – Benjamin Franklin
Someone’s earthquake emergency bag. I’d add some chocolate. What would you add?
What does that mean?
This quote has existed in various forms in most cultures throughout time. It is an eternal bit of wisdom, recognized by some of the greatest minds, and recorded in many books. Life comes fast. Things happen, sometimes we expect it, and sometimes we don’t.
The difference between the two is our level of preparedness. If we are ready (prepared), we stand a chance of making things work out for the best. However, if we have not prepared, our odds of taking advantage of, or even of surviving the situation, are greatly diminished.
What would happen if there was a terrible storm, and you weren’t prepared? Compare that to how things might be if you had been prepared. In short, when life happens, you are either prepared, or you are not. Being prepared is primary based on your ability to anticipate a situation, plan a response, and then act.
Why is preparation important?
A wedding takes a lot of preparation. A first child takes a lot of preparation. Done properly, an interview for a job takes a lot of preparation. Have you noticed a pattern here? For the big things in life, we generally notice that there is some preparation involved.
However, I believe even the little things in life require preparation. True, the small things in life typically have small consequences for failure to prepare. While it might seem so at the time, the world will not end if you forget to tape your favorite sporting event.
Basic things can benefit from preparation. Like always having a little cash, just in case the computer at the checkout is down. Like having some food and water, as well as an evacuation bag, in case of a natural disaster. The list could go on and on, but I think you get the idea.
Where can I apply this in my life?
That depends on how often you are prepared to fail, and at what things you are willing to fail. If it’s a first date, do you brush your teeth and comb your hair, or are you willing to have the door slammed in your face when you stop by to pick her up?
Are you willing to risk running out of gas if you have to make a quick trip somewhere, or do you keep an eye on your fuel gauge and try not to let it get too low? What would the cost of running out of gas be? How big a failure would it be, because you failed to prepare?
Life is full of ups and downs, successes and failures. Some are big, others are small. Since we have a finite amount of time, we cannot be completely prepared for absolutely anything that might ever happen. At some point we have to say, “If that happens, I’ll just deal with the consequences.”
If you don’t have enough cash at the convenience store to buy a candy bar to hold you over until you get home and have dinner, is that really such a big deal? Yes, you should have been prepared, but to me, it’s not such a big thing that I would worry about it.
If you live in an area prone to natural disasters, not having an evacuation bag ready would be a very big risk. If a wild fire, tornado, flood, or hurricane were coming, it would be a lot less stressful to simply grab the bag and go, rather than frantically running around the house trying to get the proper number of socks and clothes gathered, rigth?
The failure of preparation could be much larger for the those not prepared for the natural disaster, compared to those not prepared for a snack stop, right? So before you can determine where your preparation needs a bit of work, we need to figure out what you are unwilling to suffer a failure.
Where in your life is failure not an option? How is your preparedness in those areas? While you may have done some preparation, is it the proper amount based on your aversion to failure? Some things cannot be prevented, but other times failure happens because the smallest thing is missing.
There is an ancient poem titled “For Want of a Nail” which does a great job of describing what can happen when just the smallest thing goes wrong, and how such a minute failure can snowball into a catastrophe. It is alleged to be a tale of the death of Richard III of England at the Battle of Bosworth Field.
How important does something have to be before you put together a plan? How much more important than that before you begin preparations? How often do you check your preparations, as time changes everything. Does your evacuation have some of your medicines, and are they fresh? What about a spare pair of glasses?
And how often do you back up your hard drive, or at least the files you don’t want to lose? What does it take to crash a hard drive and wipe it all out? A virus? A voltage surge or lightning strike? Excess heat, moisture, impact, or… What are you willing to lose?
In life, you are either prepared, or you are not. Be prepared!
From: Twitter, @iheartquotes
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My dad always makes it a point to tell me that I am not prepared for life. I argue against him saying that I will never be able to know what being prepared means if your don’t let me experience life first hand. I always feel like it’s great to have knowledge in that sense I feel prepared, but I don’t believe that everything you are prepared for will guarantee success. It’s just a matter of being confident and having a determination to do something, Idk if that REQUIRES preparedness, I think becoming prepared is followed by the confidence, determination, and the motive to do something with that.
Thanks for stopping by, and for sharing your experience.
As I understand it, this is a classic dilemma. As a child, I remember these same words well. As a parent, I have spoken them as well. As an adult, we have had the experience needed to make many of the decisions and take the actions without much thought. We often forget that those without similar experience don’t know what to do, and when we do, we often cannot articulate what we learned.
Moving forward is a path bounded on one extreme by repeated actions and modifications. On the other extreme is marked by reading and investigation. Between them is a very fertile ground, where some action is taken, results are analyzed, research is done, and the next step taken.
In life, the only thing which is guaranteed is that we will die. Everything else requires preparation. Preparation involves some research and some experience. Experience only comes from doing, so you have that part right, but there are other ways to prepare for a broken bone than breaking one to see what happens next?
In my world, being prepared means being ready to assess the tools at hand, and to address whatever the problem of the moment may be, and to use them, to the best of my ability. Too many different things could happen for me to do either experiential or book learning of all of them, so I simply rely on what I have experienced and what I have learned as best I can.
As an aside, people tend to be the most passionate about the things they did the worst at when they were in your position. Rather than fight the power, ask him what he would have you do to become better prepared. Try it his way for a while, and agree beforehand that after, you will try it your way. Plan to get together after both ways have been tried and compare what went well and what did not, in preparation for the next round of learning.