How Are You Preparing?
Preparing for an uncertain future can bring you some peace of mind in the face of tumultuous times.
What I read: “Here’s How I’m Preparing For The Next Four Years” by Ryan Holiday.
Ryan Holiday is one of those writers and thinkers I respect considerably. His content is great. His books are excellent. Check out everything he does on his website. When his post popped into my feed describing how he’s preparing for the next four years, I immediately read it.
Considering the political shitshow unfolding in our country right now, you might assume Holiday is alluding to that specifically when he writes about preparing for the next four years. But he writes about preparing for disruption and the unexpected generally.
I can’t predict the future, but I feel pretty confident in predicting that the next 4 years are going to be crazy.
For political reasons, sure, but we don’t need to agree about that. I know I am right because you can’t find a four-year period in history that wasn’t filled with chaos, upheaval, and uncertainty. Never forget, Seneca reminds us, Fortune has a habit of behaving exactly as she pleases. Why would the next four years be an exception to this rule? There is no normal in this life…except disruption, change, and surprise.
And yet, I do think these next four years are going to be particularly challenging. We’re five weeks into the year and there have already been horrendous wildfires, intense political fighting, earthquakes, wars dragging on, a terrorist attack. My kids have already been sick. And 2025 is yet young!
Read Holiday’s post and you’ll see he lays out an insightful and thoughtful set of things he’s doing to prepare for the future. Much of it is influenced by his interest in Stoic philosophy, but regardless, all of his suggestions are excellent. Reading his post will give you some ideas to consider for how you might best prepare.
When I read Holiday’s post, it prompted me to ask my social media followers this question.
In light of political turmoil, climate change, increasingly frequent job layoffs, wealth inequality, and the yet to be known full impact of AI, automation, and robotics, what are you doing to prepare for the coming years?
I got an abundance of replies representing a widely varied set of preparations. Everyone had a unique take on how they can best prepare for what’s likely to be bumpy years ahead.
Just a few of the responses I got were: keep working longer; plan better for retirement; travel more; make sure passports and documents are prepared should they need to flee quickly; reduce expenses; save money; learn new skills; get more involved in community; move to a new state or country; try to find joy wherever they can; get involved politically; exercise and eat well; start a new revenue stream; learn survival skills; stockpile supplies (including medications); and a lot more.
It was clear from the number and extent of the responses that many people have been thinking about this topic. My unsolicited advice is that you should too if you haven’t already. It’s better to be prepared and not have to implement drastic plans than to be caught unprepared and flounder.
This brings me to what I’m doing to prepare. I could list many things, but they all seem to fall into a few high-level categories.
Downsize, drastically: A while back I started the process of eliminating as much stuff from my life as possible. It’s been a far more difficult task than I had imagined, but I continue to plod along and make progress. In my mind I keep a constraint that guides my downsizing efforts. Everything I own should fit comfortably in a modestly sized studio apartment. That’s the mental image I keep in my mind as I purge. Keeping my footprint as small as possible will allow me to quickly move whenever I want or need to while also reducing the time and monetary overheard more stuff entails.
Assume chaos: This one’s not fun, but it feels necessary, especially now. I’d already been doing this because of the escalating onslaught that climate change is bringing upon us, but now with my country’s political situation rather dire at the moment, that’s yet another factor. Plus, I consider another disruption heading toward us are rapid technological advancements that could replace millions of workers sooner than later. I have become more comfortable “Living in Discontinuity,” because it feels like I’m simply accepting reality rather than adopting a doomer mindset.
Continue learning: One of the things no one can take away from you is your knowledge, experience, and skills. Everything can collapse around you, but those things reside inside you and remain yours forever. I’m a huge proponent of self-education, especially nowadays, because I don’t think conventional schooling is going to be able to keep up with the increasingly changing information and skills landscape. I write about how I’ve leveraged self-education for myself and how you can do the same in The Art of Self-Education: How to Get a Quality Education for Personal and Professional Success Without Formal Schooling (paid link).
Build community: My community contains my most intimate partners, my friends and colleague circles, and the greater local, national, and international set of people with whom I have at least some ongoing contact. They are all my community. Your community doesn’t have to be big, but strength tends to emanate from collective efforts, and you need community for that. One of the foundation principles anti-fascist experts mention is building and maintaining strong communities, but those same communities will also be necessary for other societal shocks like climate change disasters.
Let me leave you with one ask. Please take some time to think about how you can best prepare for an uncertain future. The time you spend, and the preparations you make, will perhaps let you sleep better at night, and it will certainly put you in a better position should things go badly awry.
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