The World is On Fire…What Do I Do?

Contingency planning and execution

The world seems to be on fire right now. Major regional war in Iran. Tariffs in or out. Oil supply shocks. AI wiping out white collar work. The rise of populist authoritarianism in the West. Demographic decline in East Asia. Mass youth unemployment. Climate-change induced extreme weather and natural disasters. The list is endless, not only magnified but amplified and distorted by a never ending doomscroll cycle. It all seems overwhelming and exhausting, especially for the majority of people who are just trying to build safety, stability, and prosperity for their loved ones. It doesn’t only have to be Armageddon that strikes. It could be something prosaic like job loss, sudden illness, or a downturn in your business. I don’t have all the answers, but here’s what I hope is a useful way to think about and deal with the swirling chaos

Be Healthy

First and foremost, you must maintain your own personal well being and health — physical, psychological, emotional, and spirtual. For many of us who are responsible for the wellbeing of family members, employees, and others, it is both enobling and self-destructive to always put ourselves last. However, as the cliche says, one must put one’s own oxygen mask on first. If you suffer a stress-induced heart attack or stroke or allow your condition to get out of control, you are no use to the people who are counting on you. So no matter how bad the world gets, you must keep yourself healthy, strong, and fit.

Be Informed and Aware

First, be informed and be aware of the threats around you. The threats are real, complex, intertwined, and rapidly evolving: natural disaster, cybersecurity, geopolitical, socio-political. This does not mean being plugged into the doomscroll 24/7. Quite the opposite, actually. It is important to be an informed citizen, to be aware of imminent threats as well as longer term risks that could of a direct impact on you, your family, and your financial interests. To do this, it takes critical thinking, a discerning eye, and an open mind that places a premium on logic and evidence. It requires being aware of your own biases and being open to a wide spectrum of knowledge sources. However, it also requires having a strong filter for BS, clickbait junk, AI slop, echo chambers, and ulterior motives. If these threats do not impact you, don’t let it take up your brainspace and energy. Focus on what can impact you, and whether or not you can actually do something about it.

Be Prepared

No, you do not have to be a prepper who has stocked up for a doomsday scenario far in advance. It is never too late to be prepared, though it is far better to be ready before a bad event happens. Nonetheless, take inventory of your resources on a regular basis. Do you have enough emergency cash to last you for 6 months if you lost your job or if disaster struck your business? If given lead time and warning, have you stocked up on prescription medications, food, water, and essential supplies? Do you have secure access to shelter? Is your shelter itself secure enough to withstand the next storm? Do you know where you would go if you lost your home? Do you have a go-bag if you need to evacuate?Do you have legal documents such as power of attorney, DNR complete and up-to-date? Do you have emergency contacts and have you had a conversation with them about your expectations of their responsibilities? Don’t wait for the emergency to occur to take care of these essential readiness items.

Plan for Contingencies

When an emergency or disaster strikes, it is often natural and expected to freeze, or panic, or flee. The best way to avoid this is to have contingency plans and to rehearse what you would do in those scenarios. Though a full ‘fire drill’ is the best, to at least mentally rehearse or have written plans in advance will serve to guide you when your emotions betray you. You can’t anticipate every scenario, but some things are common. Your elderly parents will eventually get very frail and die. It is morbid to think about, but what is your plan to deal with that? What if you die? Who will take care of your children? What will happen to your assets? If you are a business owner who makes all of the big decisions, what happens to your business if you become incapacitated. What if home or place of business suffers a catastrophic loss? Do you have a business contunity or succession plan? Do stakeholders know what their role is in a given scenario? It doesn’t matter who tough you think you are — in a moment of crisis, you will not be operating at your peak. You may be out of the picture altogether. Know in advance what you want to happen.

Nurture Relationships and Alliances

No one can do everything alone. It is a fantasy to imagine yourself as a cowboy hero, maintaining your homestead with a cache of weapons and an organic vegetable garden, keeping zombies and maurauders at bay outside of your gates. But in the real world, we need family, friends, neighbors, and co-workers to survive and thrive during normal times and especially during not-normal times. Invest time in building up your relationships and personal networks, both physical and virtual. You never know who can come in handy and when. Your cousin’s neighbor or co-worker’s LinkedIn contact could have a hiring need. The old man who lives on your street might know how to fix your car. Your kid’s soccer coach may have a pick-up truck to help you haul goods. For closer contacts, you can pool resources or share contingency plans to have a ‘tribe’ that can pull together when the going gets tough. Communities are how you will get through a hard time.

Be Open to New Approaches

You know about that saying that the definitition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. This goes back to being open minded. If AI and automation has taken your job away, you can try to cling to the old ways. Or you can get smart and learn how to use these tools to your advantage. If your company or industry has gone through a downturn, you must embrace the opportunity to do something different to earn your living. This requires an open and creative mind to think above and beyond your immediate circumstances. There may be people in another part of the world who has something worth learning on how to deal with your problem. There may be communities or professionals in a totally different industry or setting who have a solution that could be useful to you.

Accepting the World vs. Changing It

Sometimes, a big diaster happens and there’s nothing you could have done to prevent it. In such cases, there’s no use in rehashing the past or second-guessing old decisions. There’s no use in worrying about all of the possibilities of what could go wrong in the future. Instead, you must be in the moment. You must accept the situation for what it is and be the steady hand that navigates you and your loved ones through the storm. You must concentrate on what you can do with your knowledge, skills, resources, and relationships.

However, sometimes a disaster is entirely predictable. If you are informed and aware of relevant and verifiable current events, you’ve seen the warning signs. Unfortunately, many people rationalize these warning signs away or lull themselves into complacency. Worst, many people compartmentalize their empathy and refuse to see the disaster coming to hit them. These types of disasters occur usually because of deliberate policy choices taken by political leaders. Sometimes these are hard choices taken in good faith to prioritize one threat over another. Sometimes, these are unintended consequences of past actions and decisions. Worse, policy choices taken out of personal enrichment or corruption or just plan short-term thinking create emergencies or the conditions that will allow for a disaster to happen later. In this case, it is in your self interest to to organize and band together with like-minded people to make your voices heard and demand and enact change. You want to be the driver, not the passenger in your own life.