The enemy gets a vote, no plan survives first contact with the enemy, and one of my personal favorites is that everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face. In life, there is no certain point where nothing can go wrong. There is no moment when, like when playing children’s games, you touch base and are safe. I would propose that until you stop breathing, you do not have control. Tragedy, terror, evil, and incidents can strike at any moment, and the most you can do is try to be prepared.
The opposition we must face is not letting paranoia or analysis paralysis set in. You should prepare for the worst but not live in fear of it all. There are any number of things that are out of your control at any time. Things that have rippled over thousands of years and cannot be anticipated or stopped. What you cannot do is wrap yourself in a blanket and pray no one ever inflicts horrible things on your life. You are a human being with a morality that tells you when things are wrong or off. If you wrap yourself in that blanket, you never emerge when those around you need you to stand for them.
How do you prepare for your worst day ever without losing yourself into paranoia? You learn, and you learn, and you learn some more. You never stop learning, consuming knowledge, understanding aspects, and addressing the unknown. In short, you never stop building yourself into something better. If you feel like you’re a master in a skill, move on to another skill and work on that. I will never stop trying to fill knowledge gaps or understand an opposing viewpoint. You learn more about your beliefs when you can defend them because if done correctly, you are forced to understand the opposing views as well. If you don’t understand the opposition, how can you know your view is correct for you?
A friend asked me to reflect on this matter, and it’s something I believe. You can never be safe, but if you can never be safe, is there a point in worrying about it? I would argue the better arrangement is to focus on preparing for anything that could come your way in hopes of mitigating the damage when it does come. When your moment of truth comes, be steady in your sense of self and take what hits come. Get outside what you think you know to see what lies beyond that point. I have worked in cultures around the world and been exposed to things that the population thinks are normal but to me are off-putting or take a second to process. I would tell you to embrace those moments and see what others see.
Our motto is that the beaten path is for beaten people for a reason. Resist the seduction of a well-worn route that is not what your soul craves. Instead, enjoy the exhaustion of hacking your own path through the brush.
Good stuff. Thank you.