New Preppers and Fear-Addiction

One young man that I know worried about being unprepared and jumped into prepping with both feet. After a while, he gave up prepping. He could not live his life (as a father of two small kids) in a constant state of fear over what he was unprepared for. 

Now, I’m not suggesting that people should find bliss in ignorance. A healthy respect for adversity is a good thing. A Boy Scout’s approach to life is prudent. Stuff happens. “A prudent person foresees danger and takes precautions. The simpleton goes blindly on and suffers the consequences.” (Proverbs  22:3, NLT)

Fear of being unprepared for some disaster is often what turns a sheeple into a prepper and that’s a good thing. The world needs more preppers and fewer sheeple. There is, after all, quite a bit to be worried about. There always is.

That said, not all dangers are created equal. Some possible trouble is fairly likely — like a hurricane hitting the Gulf coast during any year. Some dangers are really, REALLY remote — like a super-disease being released by a melting glacier. A global pandemic would be worse than a mere hurricane. But, more-terrible consequences do not make an event more likely.

For some new preppers, the horrors are what gets ahold of their minds. The Possible and The Likely conflate. The future becomes dire. They can’t let it go.

Marketers prey on this, ultimately to the detriment of actual prepping. A common feature in marketing to preppers is an appeal to fear — fear that without their gadget or wonder-prep, you and your family are totally and horribly doomed in a disaster that (they assure you) looms just around the corner. Do it for your family! Buy now!

I was reminded of this human weakness for fear in a recent article by John Stossel. (you can read it here, if you like.) His point is that by many metrics, the world is actually a better place than it used to be. It’s better than we’re led to believe: longer lives, healthier, safer, richer, etc., despite the constant drumbeat about everything is going to hell in a hand basket.

Working against our peace of mind is our inherent human nature. We tend to ignore good news and gravitate to fear.  He quotes another author who claims that our tendency toward fear is due to evolution. Two cavemen: one hears a rustle in the grass and isn’t worried. The second one hears the rustle and thinks, ‘tiger’ and hides. The second one survives to become our ancestor. Fear is an evolutionary survival technique, she said.

I’m always skeptical of anecdotal appeals to evolution to explain human nature. One could just as well posit two different cavemen — hungry cavemen — looking at a strange fruit. The first one decides to eat it. He lives. The second one is afraid it’s poison, so doesn’t eat and starves to death. The first one survives to become our ancestor. Fear as doom. “Evolution” anecdotes can cut both ways.

Stossel’s point is that there is something in mankind that is more attuned to, more sensitive to bad news. Marketers know this. News sellers know this (because that’s what they’re actually doing, of course — selling news).

Preppers who have been in it for long enough become more skeptical of fear mongers. Some mongers are always preaching of disasters-just-around-the-corner that never materialize. Skepticism is a handy anti-venom to fear mongering.

Some preppers newer to the fold, like my young friend, get swept up by the torrent of things to be afraid of — EMPs, super-volcanoes, freak-germs, asteroids, etc. They cannot let go of the fears no matter how much food and water they stockpile. It is never enough. Some newbies burn out, like my friend. Some put their personal finances (and marriages) through hell. 

While fear can be a motivator, it makes a terrible lifestyle. What is a fear-addict to do?

Establish a Fear Budget

You can’t worry about everything. No one can. Just like you have only so much money to go around, you’ve only got so much fear your psyche can handle. Budget your fear like you do your money. Of all the things you could worry about, which is the most likely? Focus on that. Let your fear of (say) hurricanes get you ready for them. After you’ve got the hurricane preps squared away, you’re no longer afraid of hurricanes. Move down the list. 

Do you live in a flood-prone zone too? Potentially dangerous urban environment? Chemical plant nearby? Let your re-channeled fear worry about what you’ll do about the second-most likely, then the third, etc.

Simple Steps to De-Stress Your Prepping

1. Turning off the media temporarily will help. Most of them sell YOU fear for their benefit, not yours. Stop listening to them. You want to be informed, yes, but it is harder to sift the informational wheat from the fear-monger’s chaff when you’re spooked. You can get to that later. For now, take a break. Turn off the TV and ignore Facebook and Twitter. Take a break from the bloggers who only write of doom.

2. Assess your immediate situation, focusing on the positives. What DO you have? One of the bits of advice survivalists give for someone lost in the woods (say from a plane crash), is to first stop and assess your situation. Do not start by running through the woods in a panic. No good comes from that. Instead, assess. What condition are you in? What do you have for tools and resources? etc., etc.

If you’re a prepper just starting out, take a quick inventory of what you DO have on hand. If you have enough food, water, and supplies to last your family for two weeks, congratulations! Most people don’t. You’re already ahead. If the power went out for a week, you and your family would be fine. You don’t have to fear a one-week outage. Make yourself think glass-half-full.

3. Honestly evaluate the threats that worry you. Some trouble is more likely, some of it (even if it would be super-terrible-awful if it did happen) is a LOT less likely to happen. Don’t let the terrible-ness imply immanence.

If you live in a hurricane zone, the odds are good you’ll have to face that. The odds are really poor of a mutant virus animating corpses who cause a total societal collapse. Just about anything is possible, of course — even zombies — but how likely is it? Prioritize. Prep for the hurricane first, then when you’ve got that covered, move down the list. You may never get to prepping for the mutant zombies, but that’s okay.

4. Learn to spot One-Ups-Manship advice: Scattered among the reasonable preppers giving good advice are people for whom YOU can never have as much of X as they think you should. They usually have a pet prep too. If they’re a gun-guy, they tell you that you need umpteen different guns and tens of thousands of rounds of ammo for each. Just realize that if you did buy umpteen different guns and had ten thousand rounds of ammo for each, they would still tell you that you are woefully underprepared. Now, you must have twenty-thousand rounds or you’re simply doomed!

That’s just how they are. Their vision of how much YOU should have is a mirage on the horizon. Don’t let their mirages stress you out. Whether it is food, or water, or medical supplies, or fitness, or whatever, there are bloggers out there eager to tell you that you don’t have enough of whatever it is that they focus on. They seem to need people to be afraid. Take them with a grain of salt.

Strive for balance

Rather than maxing out a single category first before moving on, increase all of your prep categories a little at a time. Ten thousand rounds of ammo, but no food is just as bad as a year’s worth of food and zero ammo. Add a little to each as you can afford to.

Bask in Overlapping Preparedness

After you’ve been adding to your preps for a while, notice that many preps apply to multiple crises. Enough food and water to get you through two weeks during the aftermath of a hurricane, would also sustain you through two weeks of a major blackout, or being forced to shelter in place during civil unrest. If two weeks doesn’t seem like enough, go for three or four. 

If you’ve got some alternate means to cook your food and heat your home, you’re prepared for a local grid failure (fairly common), but also for an EMP taking down the whole nation’s grid (less likely), or a tyrannical government shutting off your utilities because you did not worship the emperor, etc. etc.

If you’ve added some personal defense items, you are better prepared for a home invasion (fairly common) but also some civil unrest (less common). If zombies do spark a societal collapse, your defenses will help against panicking refugees. (What will actually stop a zombie is still debatable.)

Know That You’re Buying Time

Mike Tyson is reported to have said: “Everybody has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.” Military men like to say, “No plan survives first contact with the enemy.” The thought is the same. Crises have so many variables. No one can plan for every contingency. No two hurricanes, or floods, or outages, are the same. Everyone will have to assess and adapt to their punch-in-the-mouth. 

Almost no one has enough preps to survive indefinitely. Stored supplies eventually run out. Preps give you the luxury of time — time to grow new food, time to rebuild, time to bug out to safety, etc. With some preps, you won’t be desperate for food and water (etc.). Your mind will be free to assess what your options are after the punch in the mouth. Hunker down? Bug out? Wait it out? With even just a week’s worth of preps, you have a few days in which to make a well-reasoned plan for what to do next rather than a desperate impulsive.

Recognize Your Human Nature

Fear is attractive. Fear is addictive. Some people are actually uncomfortable if they can’t worry. Maybe it’s the Better-Safe-Than-Sorry chromosome. Recognize that fact.  Allow yourself to take some comfort in the preps you have.  It isn’t complacency to be able to admit that you’ve got enough preps to take care of your family for two weeks (or whatever you have) without outside aid. That is a great thing. Allow yourself that comfort. It isn’t a prepper-sin to feel comfort. Build on your success. Work on having four weeks next. You’ll feel even better!

Don’t let the fear mongers freak you out. Don’t let the weight of all their fear push out out of prepping.