Tag Archives: survivor

New Year, Fresh Look

Goals, Plans, Psychology, , , , ,

So… 2016 ready or not here we are! As I look to the new year and wonder what life has in store for me, I’m filled with hope and resolve. Resolve, because only victims leave their lives to chance alone and I will not be a victim! Hope, because no matter how prepared we are luck is always a factor! All of us should have a plan, then a backup plan, a contingency plan and an emergency plan for every situation we can imagine. That’s a lot of planning, well yeah… and like in a fight your main plan goes out the window the first time you get hit!

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I heard a saying many years ago and I don’t remember who or where I heard it but it’s kind of a mantra for me…

“If you continue to think what you’ve always thought, you’ll continue to get what you’ve always got”

Let that just sit and sink in for a second.

The only way to effect change in your life is to change your current paradigm, the way you think or see the world! If you smoke and want to stop… be a non-smoker! Don’t try to stop… In the immortal words of Robin Williams in The Fisher King, either do it, or don’t do it! Trying is just a pussy that can’t commit!

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Oh we can come up with all kinds of excuses to let ourselves off the hook! My wife, or my boss, or the promotion didn’t come through, or that professor doesn’t like me… WHATEVER! That is all victim mentality, somebody stopped me and I wasn’t strong enough to persevere! So what does this have to do with the new year? Start setting goals! But Dave I don’t do New Years Resolutions… Did I say make a new years resolution? NO! I said set goals! And Goals not written down are just dreams, and dreams are vague ideas that disappear in time. Goals on the other hand have a timeline and a plan… oh wait weren’t we talking about plans earlier? Just in case you aren’t a goal setter and haven’t ever done so, I’ll go over the way its done…

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First, identify your long term goal, with a timeline. Since we’re talking about survival… How about, I want to be completely self-sufficient in 10 years.

Next, identify what steps (3 to 5) will take you to the above long term goal and a timeline for each… I want to be off the energy and water grid in 5 years. I want to have a self sustainable food source with 6 months of food storage within 3 years. Within 7 years, I want to have access to a steady supply of meat in the event of a catastrophe. These are your medium range goals.

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Next identify what steps will take you to your medium range goals along with your accomplishment timeline… To be energy independent I need to research and identify 3 ways to produce energy this year, along with the feasibility of self maintaining these energy sources in the long run. Possible energy sources to be looked at are solar, wind turbine and water turbine. We will break down each of our medium range goals in this manner.

Finally, we set our “to do” list mile stones… How much energy do we consume monthly? This week, Identify from past electricity bills how much energy we consume. By months end fact find: Is past electricity use a realistic baseline for an emergency situation? How much energy is produced by one solar panel? Do solar panels come in different sizes? What is the cost per panel? Will the panels work during a storm or cloudy day? How do I store energy for use when the panels don’t produce energy?

In this last step we’re trying to find out how much we don’t know, how much we do know, what we need to learn and we want to assign everything a deadline. If you don’t meet your deadline, take a knee, do a reevaluation. What caused you to fail? Was your goal or deadline unrealistic? Was there an outside force acting upon your goal accomplishment? Can you reevaluate and realign your timeline?

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Above all, be honest with yourself!

Now go set your goals and make your plans! Have fun and we’ll see you next week…

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The Old World Revisited

SHTF, Survival, Transportation, Uncategorized, , , ,

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I read a popular blog post last week that posed the question, “Is living within 100 miles of a city of 1 million people safe after an SHTF event?” After posting my opinion. We had my son and his family at our house for the Christmas holiday and I started thinking about family separation in an SHTF event… I live northwest of Fort Worth and my son lives southeast of Dallas, in other words my concern is that I have over 7 million people separating us! I also have 2 daughters and grandchildren in Southern California, a grandson in Washington and a son in Utah. In an event such as a nuclear or EMP attack, travel of thousands of miles would be difficult and deadly, but even hundreds of miles with certain obstacles may as well be thousands!

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To start with, in an EMP/nuclear attack all distance communication would be wiped out. Any vehicle with electronic ignition and fuel injection would be absolutely useless. Any vehicles that still work would be subject to confiscation by governmental officials under martial law or by outlaws. Horses or other pack animals would be desired not just for their use to ride but as meat for starving people, since hunting/trapping has become a lost art to the common city dwelling modern human. Even with a car, how far could a person get? 5 or 600 miles then what? What happens when the gas runs out? What happens to families like mine that are scattered around the country, to kids that are off at college, dads that are truck drivers or moms that are flight attendants or on a business trip in New York when it hits? How many of us are prepared to walk hundreds or thousands of miles to get home? Do you have a plan in place for your family to execute in your absence?

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There’s no question that large population centers will be a dangerous obstacle when traveling. Whether they are run by a government official, military force, or former criminal boss turned ruler, what he/she/they see as most beneficial may be at your expense with very little you can do about it! Whether by vehicle, horse, ox cart, or on foot large population centers should probably be avoided!

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If you travel on a regular basis, have and know how to use paper maps. Large scale maps of where you are and possible routes home and small scale maps of the area you are visiting and any points of interest/concern in your proposed path. A thought worth mentioning on this subject however… Any points/routes plotted on a map will be subject to compromise if the map is lost or stolen! If you don’t want your bugout location or families location known, plotting them on the map is probably not a good idea! Besides look at it from an outsiders point of view, someone who has a map and a plan is noteworthy and probably has resources worth taking.

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Many possible threat events could push us back 150 years or more. The problem is that travel in the ways of the old world is only the beginning of our problems! 150 years ago there was an infrastructure in place that was based on a technology that has been antiquated and replaced many times since then. How do we go from cell phones and robotics back to pony express and carrier pigeon; from supermarkets and fast food to hunting, harvesting and non refrigerated food storage? Do we have the knowledge and skills to survive without modern conveniences?

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Survivor Mentality

Psychology, Survival, Uncategorized, ,

According to Psychology Today, the survivor mentality has a list of traits: Hope, True Grit, the ability to Soldier On, the ability to Grow after Trauma and a Spiritual Component. There have been hundreds if not thousands of books analyzing the subject. You see and read about survival all around you every day: Cancer survivors, terror survivors, storm survivors and drug abuse survivors just to name a few.

The field is called “human factors in survival” basically the study of why some people die and others survive. Everyone goes through trials and adversity in their lives, some are ground down, others come out the other side stronger and more capable. Victim or survivor; what’s the difference? Well, for starters, accountability! Being a victim is easy, whenever something happens or goes wrong, a victim can always blame someone else, a situation or society in general. The problem with being a victim is that you aren’t in charge of your own destiny. A victim always looks to someone else to save them, care for them or validate them. In other words, in a crisis victims are the bodies that get cleaned up afterward.

There is nothing physically different about a survivor, no special training is required. In fact, no matter what training you’ve had there is no guarantee that you will be a survivor! Wait Dave! What about members of the Special Forces? SEALs, Green Berets, Rangers; they’re all survivors! Yes, you’re right they are, but their training didn’t make them survivors, only the survivors made it through training! 29 years ago this month, I graduated from bootcamp in San Diego. While I was going through training, several of my fellow recruits would say, “I don’t know how much more I can take”, my response was always the same, “it’s almost over just hold on, it’s all in your head!”.

That ladies and gentlemen, is the secret to survival, attitude! Easy huh?!? Don’t you believe it, being a survivor is hard! There’s no one to blame, it’s all you! No matter what you’re going through, you will triumph you will come out on top. I will die someday, but it won’t be today and not by your hand! I will get through this, there is no way I die here, or like this, not this way! It’s easy to say, the problem is meaning it when it counts.

However you have to start somewhere!

I issue this challenge: Take control of your own destiny! Adopt the philosophy that you will not be a victim!

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