Planning to Make Plans

You cannot be ready for an unforeseen disaster overnight.  Such things take careful planning and advanced forethought.  This is the part of the lecture where I'm supposed to insert inspirational quotes like, "He who fails to prepare, prepares to fail.", but I'm going to spare you the rhetoric and get down to business.  Like I said previously, the escape plans you formulate for your family all involve several phases.  If you follow the steps I detail, you will eventually find yourself meeting the primary criteria of all escape plans which is:

HAVE YOUR SHIT TOGETHER BEFORE IT HITS THE FAN!

Surviving a disaster means living through and beyond it - which is a break even proposition.  After the dust settles, if everyone you care about is still breathing, then you've met the 'survival' criteria.  Give yourself a gold star. 

I, personally, want to do better than just survive - and I hope you do too.  I will try to articulate that throughout these pages.  If you approach a disaster as an opportunity, you can certainly do much more than simply survive.  I am personally better off in many ways post-Katrina because I recognized that while Katrina destroyed many things, Katrina also created many opportunities.  In order to seize on those opportunities, however, it is necessary to HYST. 

I'm going to say it over and over again - Survival is NOT a kit.  Having Your Shit Together (HYST), however, is a critical step in beating not just the disaster game, but the game of life generally.  Having Your Shit Together (HYST) means being physically and mentally organized for unforeseen eventualities.  These eventualities do not necessarily have to be disasters.  You may, for instance, be suddenly struck by the idea on a Friday afternoon that you will take the children and spousal unit down to the coast for the weekend.  If you HYST, you can just toss a few clothes in a bag, toss a few things in the car, and off you go.  Being prepared for the ugly side of life prepares you for the beautiful side of life too, so don't take all of this stuff too grimly. 

To be clear, we are preparing for some unknown disaster and we have to take all the known kinds of disaster into account.  Disasters are not just physical sometimes.  They may be natural, man made, physical, economic, mental, emotional, public, or private.  By taking the time to consider all of these in turn, we can tame that overwhelmed feeling we have in the beginning and turn it into a positive outlook on life.

OK.  So much for the pep talk.   Let's get down to practicalities.  In the game of life, your game piece lands on DISASTER!.  Do not pass GO.  Do not collect $200.  Before we can talk about the actions you need to take at that moment, you have to HYST. 

There are several areas and subheadings under HYST.  You will need to HYST in several locations - in your home, in your car, at work, and/or at school.  You will need to be prepared to stay where you are, and you will need to be prepared to flee.  All of this will seem very overwhelming at first, but stick with me and it will be easy.  Once you HYST, you'll thank me.  The first thing we have to do is appreciate the different areas for preparations (preps) to be made.  We need to GHOST (Get and Have Our Shit Together) in several areas.  Personal, home, car, work, and school.  We also have to coordinate those preps in ways that make sense, and we need to be able to implement them at GO (Get Out!) time.

Shane

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