My approach to the “prepper” mentality

I tend to look at things a bit differently than a lot of people. I was the kid that always had a Swiss Army knife in his pocket. I was never a Boyscout, but I may have missed my calling in that regard. I was always trying to be prepared, come what may. In fact the picture above is of the very knife that is riding in my right hip pocket as I write this post. To this day I find myself carrying a messenger bag (some call it my “Murse” ie Man Purse) with me everywhere I go. I do this not to make a fashion statement, in fact if anything it probably states that I have NO fashion, but because I like having everything I need with me. Sunglasses, cell phone charger,a portable lighter even though I don’t smoke, even a deck of cards, I have everything in that bag. I rest assured that I have all the necessary items with me for whatever may arise. Maybe it i because I watched one too many episodes of MacGuyver as a kid, maybe I am paranoid, but I like being prepared. If I can carry it easily and I see a practical application for it, most likely it is in my bag.

And that carries over into my take on disaster preparedness as well. I tend to shy away from the impractical, but if I can see a practical application for something and I can sustain it, I try to be prepared. Does this mean that I carry a bottle of activated charcoal in my bag in case of accidental poisoning, no. But does it mean that I carry a small bottle of ibuprofen, yes I do. For me to see something to make it into my bag it must meet two criteria: Practicality, and Portability.Without keeping these criteria in mind, I would soon be wheeling around an impractically large, carry on sized tote full of my “practical” items.

By the same token I apply a similar thought process to the things that I keep on hand at home. Here is how I see it. In order for something to appeal to me as a preparedness item it must be practical whether a disaster scenario happens or not. I can’t afford financially or in terms of practicality to have a shelf full or MRE‘s laying around “just in case”. It seems to me to large a financial investment and too small a likelihood that I will need them for me to justify it. What we do as a family, however, is to can and freeze many things that we either buy in bulk, or raise in our garden in the summer time. We recently split a side of beef with another family and put that into the freezer, we still have frozen fruit and vegetables from this past summer. These are items that we will use anyway, but in the case that something would happen to disrupt our food supply chain, we would have food for at least the foreseeable future. It is a balance of the financial cost of having something and the practicality of seeing it as useful. I have a couple of canvas military surplus water containers stored in my shop. I have no idea what I would use them for, but they were free, so the practicality doesn’t have to outweigh a heavy financial cost, so they are just hanging up there in my loft. It is the same economy of calculations that allow me to carry the cigarette lighter in my Murse when I don’t smoke. It takes up so little space that it doesn’t need to have a highly likely use.

This approach to calculating the usefulness of something as it relates to its cost (in financial or other terms) does eventually break down though. There is a process of risk assessment that is referred to as the probability versus impact or the magnitude of the loss (PvI or L) method. It is the process by which you look at the probability of something and you weigh it against the impact it would have when you are assessing a risk. Home owners insurance is a very good example. Outside of the fact that most people are required to carry property insurance by the bank to which they p[ay their mortgage, the decision process would go something like this. The probability that my house would catch on fire, be destroyed by a storm is relatively low (knock on wood). But the potential impact or magnitude of that loss could be catastrophic to my family. For that reason, because the magnitude is so great I would choose to purchase home owners insurance. The potential impact of the disaster is so great and so potentially devastating that no matter how remote the chance may be that it would happen, I would be considered a fool not to be prepared to meet that challenge.

This is where this process becomes somewhat personal and rather subjective. It takes this turn because it is dependent upon each one to assess their own risk and determine whether it justifies the “cost” of preparedness. I know it is pretty likely that at some point the power will go out at my house. For that reason I have a flashlight in my bedroom, a lantern in the family room, and I am working on a system of backup power. I have weighed the probability and the impact and decided that they merit the cost of being prepared to meet that challenge. In the case of MRE’s again, I have weighed the probability that I will need them against the cost of that step of preparedness and in my case I have decided that they do not justify the expenditure. I would hate to be unprepared for an emergency that may arise and wish that I had done more to prepare to meet an unexpected circumstance. The thought that I could fail to prepare my family for a potentially devastating disaster weighs heavily upon the heart of this father and husband. By the same token, I don’t want to look back and wish that I hadn’t spent so much time, effort, and money on being prepared for a disaster that never arises. I cannot bear the thought of having “cost” my family so much to prepare for something that never happened. It is a delicate balance to maintain and as much as possible I believe it needs to be a decision that is discussed and agreed upon by the family. I for one don’t want to bear the consequence alone for either extreme of this balance, so my wife and I discuss the risks, impact, and costs associated with these kinds of decisions.

It is this kind of approach to the “prepper” mentality that I feel is both sensible and prudent. I may be seen as a “kook” by some, but as a father and husband I feel a compelling sense of responsibility for the welfare of my family whether the storms come or not. Old fashioned, probably; but that’s how we see things from in front of the Tinkerer’s Tool Chest.