What is Prepper Envy? Prepper envy is when one Prepper looks at the preps of another Prepper and becomes jealous. Just looking at the comment sections of a Prepper YouTube channel or in Prepper blogs with comment sections will establish this phenomenon. Prepper Envy can become a psychological roadblock that prevents people from being better prepared. Do you have Prepper Envy? What can be done to overcome this self-imposed artificial hurdle to becoming better prepared?
We all start with one step
Regardless of the motivation to prepare, all Preppers, regardless of our demographics, started by taking some type of initial step to prepare. That step could have been putting a case of water or toilet paper away, taking a self-defense course, assembling a bug-out bag, reading a book such as JWR’s How To Survive The End Of The World As We Know It, or any number of other actions. We all started out our prepping on an even keel but our first step had to start with some type of action. If you have ever seen the start of a marathon race, you know that some runners are closer to the start line while others can be several yards back. The start of our prepping marathon is the same way. We all have different skills and abilities. If you were running a marathon as a complete novice would you expect to keep up with a professional marathon runner with numerous wins under their belt? Probably not, but then why should we expect to prepare like others, especially preppers who have been preparing for decades?
it is about the destination
Walking or running makes no difference, it is about the destination. We have all heard that “preparedness is a journey” and that “preparedness is not a sprint but a marathon.” In today’s world of instant gratification, people want to spend $20 and be done so they can go back to watching “the game” or back to playing a video game. Succumbing to instant gratification when in comes to your future survival, only tricks your mind into thinking you are prepared. Some Preppers create psychological “roadblocks” based on demographics such as race, gender, education, wealth, disability, et cetera. That is not to say that demographics do not impact the way you prepare. But viewing a demographic challenge as a roadblock, versus as a hurdle, only provides a psychological excuse not to move forward to prepare. It is my summation that Preppers, who have to overcome hurdles, are actually better prepared than those who just solve an issue by opening their wallet.
It is in the Planning
I really like history. I do not necessarily focus on one or two periods in time but rather I tend to focus on specific events or topics. One of my favorite events to study is D-Day. Unlike many who like to look at the fighting on D-Day, I like to study the logistics behind Operation Overlord. Getting troops into Normandy was not THE big issue, it was rather how do we keep the troops supplied once they landed. The key to the success of D-Day was the massive focus on logistics. The logistical planning for D-day started well before the Allies had even determined where to land. Many of the logistical successes of D-Day were due to the planning done after the logistics failures during Operation Torch, the amphibious landing in North Africa in 1942.
So how does this relate to Prepping? Imagine sitting down at a table to think about water for your post-SHTF survival and you have a nice budget. You “google” what is the best water filter system and conclude that a $3,000 water filtration system from “XYZ Corp” will meet your requirements, so you order it on line, it gets delivered and you put it on the self with the rest of your preps. Problem solved right? Maybe. But what if you only had $20 to spend on your post-SHTF water needs? A number of options are immediately off the table due to cost. You would have to “think” more in-depth about your options. That thought process or “exercise” would make you contemplate and compare and contrast many different options.
Perhaps you conclude that there is no single “best thing” for your post-SHTF water needs that fits your $20 budget. You instead buy a lighter to start fires to boil water to purify, some plastic sheeting for a solar still and rain catchment, a bag of pool shock to make your own “bleach” and a collapsible water tote bag.
Who is better prepared to get drinkable water post-SHTF? Our first prepper did not buy extra filters and also did not consider a backup method. Our first prepper also did not consider that a water filter is no good without water. If you are suffering from Prepper envy, you would just make the excuse that because you cannot afford to buy the $3,000 water filter system, like some anonymous prepper on the Internet said he did, you will just not do anything to ensure you have water post-SHTF.
A lesson from D-Day logistics that we should all embrace is the value of long range planning. The U.S. knew at some point it would have to invade Western Europe. That invasion would take lots of “stuff” and lots of people. The U.S. started shipping 5 million tons of “stuff” to England two years before the invasion. It was estimated that about 60% of the weight of the material needed for supporting the D-Day invasion would be from Petroleum, Oil and Lubricants (POL). This assessment was done in the Spring of 1942! In order to ensure the quick supply of POL in the volumes needed for the invasion force, “Operation PLUTO” or Pipeline Under The Ocean was commenced. The British built an underwater pipeline across the English Channel. The pipeline, however, did not carry the bulk of the POL across the English Channel. The bulk of the POL was still carried across in several tankers that arrived in England about a year before the invasion. You can also thank D-day for making the “Jerry can” a common prepper staple.
Even in a war economy, it still takes time to get ships built and across the sea. For some preppers, their logistical planning maybe as simple as I will have 12 people at the retreat/Bug-Out-Location and want food for 5 years and an order is placed for pallets of freeze-dried foods. Or perhaps you decide to plant a larger garden and preserve the surplus each year. Those with prepper envy convince themselves that cases of freeze-dried foods are not in the budget and gardening and food preservation is well, just too hard work for them, so they put no food away. Just 20 pounds of rice would provide the bare substance for a family of four for one month. A quick check on the internet, at the time of writing, has white rice going for $15 for 20 pounds. I can think of several ways to come up with $15 a month. For example, I recently saw a person holding a sign saying he was “broke” and asking for money on the side of a road. He was smoking a cigarette when I drove past him. A pack of cigarettes are running anywhere between $7 (generic) to $10 a pack for name brand. So even this person could come up with $15 for a 20-pound bag of rice each month.
Many of our perceived barriers to being prepared are due to our psychological want to be prepared with little to no effort, also known as “laziness”. And before you label me, I am human too and can be lazy just like everyone else. The question is, is your’s a case of acute or chronic laziness? There are probably preppers who spend more time and effort on planning a Thanksgiving Day meal than on planning for post-SHTF meals. Having been a disaster planner for over 20 years I believe I know the reason why most people do not spend a lot of time on planning for disasters. It comes down to unreasonable expectations.
Lower your expectations and you will not be disappointed:
Anyone who has done in-depth disaster planning knows that response planning is hindered by a swarm of “What ifs”. “What ifs” serve a purpose but they can challenge some people to the point of surrender. What if a tornado hits our home and destroys all our preps? What if we are on vacation across the country when an EMP happens? What ifs can help us but at some point they become counter-productive. What if we do not do anything to prepare because we are paralyzed by the many “What ifs”? What we need to keep in mind as we plan, is that a few of the “what ifs” may come to fruition, but it is highly unlikely that all the “what ifs” materialize. Over-coming “What ifs” can be overcome by simply applying primary, alternate, contingency and emergency (PACE) planning. If you think you “plan” but you have never put pen to paper, I implore you to adopt the practice of writing plans.
Retaining information
We all have a preferred way of learning something. Some people are able to read a book to learn something, others can be told how to do it, while others have to see a task performed in order to learn it. Studies have shown that when we write something down (typing does NOT count) that we retain more of that information. Thus when we write down our plans it helps to memorize them as well. Perhaps we wrote down 6 draft plans, would that be confusing? The short answer is no. Why? Because those 5 other draft plans could actually fit the situation we are faced with better than our final plan. This is where recognition-primed decision-making comes in.
I remember that
Ever have a gut feeling? The actual science behind that may be in your subconscious memory. If you picked 5 people with diverse backgrounds and experiences and asked them each to perform the task of starting a fire for survival, we can expect them to start their fire differently than their peers. How one starts their fire is not the important part, it is that they can actually start a fire that counts. A seasoned Boy Scout may choose a fire bow, an electrician a 9-volt battery and steel wool, a chemist would use a concoction of chemicals, an optometrist an eyeglass lens. A housewife might use a simple lighter.
Which one was correct? Answer, each one. As the old saying goes, “There is more than one way to skin a cat”. We tend to forget that when we prep. The concept of recognition prime decision-making is that when we are given a task, our minds start looking for “memory markers”. That is our mind starts flipping through our memories until it comes across a memory that might be a solution. Since we all have different “memories”, and that includes training, we are all going to come up with our own “best answer” based on our individual knowledge, skills, and abilities. So what does this have to do with prepper planning? When you write plans down and contemplate the various nuances of each plan you are creating “memory markers”. So if your plan is to do “X” but you cannot do “X”, for whatever reason, your mind will have the other plans that you contemplated falling back on as alternatives. Hence why writing down plans with pen and paper is so important.
Do what you can with what you have
We are preparing for ourselves and our family, what another family does or does not do should not influence our preparations. This is no different than the rest of our lives when it comes right down to it. We are commanded not to covet other people’s things, this includes preps. There are people with larger houses, nicer trucks, and bigger tractors than me. So what? I have been blessed with what I have and am grateful that I have what I have. Stop being concerned with what other people have and be concerned about what you have and how it can be used to help ensure you and your family’s survival.
But what if…
News flash, we cannot control everything. If you have never seen the “circles of Influence” you should “google it.” Our “circle of control” is much smaller than our “circle of concern.” We can be prepared as physically possible but we are still at the mercy of fate. Our preparedness steps are just attempts to tip the scales in our favor.
So do not fall into the grips of prepper envy and do nothing to prepare, and remember, life is really about making choices. Unfortunately, some people make choices that do not take into consideration “bad times”. I take solace in knowing that when SHTF I will not be burdened with thoughts such as “I wish I would have done ‘X’”, since I am very confident that I have done all within my means to be prepared as I can be. Prep onward!