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PREPPING: You Don’t Have to Save the World in a Weekend

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By FabrikaSimf @ Shutterstock.com

What’s worked for us is to approach the daunting task of prepping with baby steps. Once you start it’s easy to get overwhelmed. You don’t have to save the world in a weekend. But you should be ready to survive and thrive no matter what comes your way. Ben Sixsmith reports in Spectator World that the world is perhaps not as reliable as it’s made out to be. He writes of the recent Facebook outage:

This peculiar occasion reminds us of the value of material possessions — and I emphasize material, as in ‘existing in a material form’. The Facebook outage offers us a chance to reflect that a lot of the photos, videos, songs, texts, and so on that we take to be our own depend on other people’s software to be accessed and to exist. If an app disappears, one can lose everything.

To be sure, physical objects need not be more resilient than data. Facebook reappeared with all of its users’ content after that configuration change had driven it offline whereas a lit match lazily dispensed with inside an art gallery could lead to devastation from which only ash emerges. Still, it is worthwhile to have a physical alternative of your favorite photographs or texts – a back-up you can hold, which no configuration change can reach.

This was one of several small but suggestive incidents which have illustrated how the software and infrastructure that sustains our lives is less strong than we imagined. All the intricate systems that thread through our societies like pipes and beams through buildings have been shaken. There was the Texas power crisis in February, which reportedly left the Lone Star State within four minutes of a total grid collapse. There are the resource shortages caused by, according to an informative report from Axios, ‘pandemic restrictions, labor shortages and record-high prices for Chinese shipping containers.’ Hell, one could even mention the Suez Canal blockage, which, though hilarious, held up $9 billion in global trade per day.

Action Line: The world is fragile. Remaining vigilant, and preparing your family for future risk is admirable. Perhaps the most difficult part of getting prepared is beating the inertia that stops you from taking that first step. That’s where I can help, if you’re serious about getting prepared. If you really want to beat inertia, click here to sign up for my free monthly Survive & Thrive newsletter, where I’ll encourage you to get moving on your financial and personal security goals. But only if you’re serious.

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E.J. Smith - Your Survival Guy

E.J. Smith is Founder of YourSurvivalGuy.com, Managing Director at Richard C. Young & Co., Ltd., a Managing Editor of Richardcyoung.com, and Editor-in-Chief of Youngresearch.com. His focus at all times is on preparing clients and readers for “Times Like These.” E.J. graduated from Babson College in Wellesley, Massachusetts, with a B.S. in finance and investments. In 1995, E.J. began his investment career at Fidelity Investments in Boston before joining Richard C. Young & Co., Ltd. in 1998. E.J. has trained at Sig Sauer Academy in Epping, NH. His first drum set was a 5-piece Slingerland with Zildjians. He grew-up worshiping Neil Peart (RIP) of the band Rush, and loves the song Tom Sawyer—the name of his family’s boat, a Grady-White Canyon 306. He grew up in Mattapoisett, MA, an idyllic small town on the water near Cape Cod. He spends time in Newport, RI and Bartlett, NH—both as far away from Wall Street as one could mentally get. The Newport office is on a quiet, tree lined street not far from the harbor and the log cabin in Bartlett, NH, the “Live Free or Die” state, sits on the edge of the White Mountain National Forest. He enjoys spending time in Key West (RIP JB) and Paris. Please get in touch with E.J. at ejsmith@yoursurvivalguy.com To sign up for my free monthly Survive & Thrive letter, click here.
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