Like most people, when the virus hit I was just trying to work and take care of family, not thinking our way of life was about to be completely changed.
I remember when I first took notice I was in the hospital with my grandpa, watching those TVs they put in the hospital rooms. My grandpa switched it to the news and they were talking about a deadly virus that just entered the country in the northwest. It was absolute panic, the news made it seem like the Apocalypse and were showing clips of people panicking at the store.
And sure enough...
The next time I found myself in the grocery store I was staring at an empty shelf with broken eggs surrounding my feet, trying not to crunch the eggshells as I watched towers of supplies roll by on carts racing towards the checkout. It was chaos.
People in America and the west never think this kind of thing can happen here. Pandemics, widespread riots, violence, and looting: None of this is an everyday worry for most people so nobody really prepares.
As humans we have tunnel vision. Most of us are just trying to get by. We are working and waiting to get home to watch our favorite netflix show.
But when the crisis hit, all hell broke loose, and many people turned into a scared mob.
The government was not able to save everyone or be relied on...
And neither were the media who we trusted to report us news, instead poured gasoline on the fire with sensationalist reporting, seemingly almost designed to create chaos.
Then, at the beginning of the Covid lockdowns my friends were calling me up wondering what to do since they knew I had been through crises before and was into survival skills.
Those same friends who had made fun of me for being interested in crisis preparedness were now looking to me for answers.
You see as a kid I grew up in poverty, sometimes doing without food, hot water, running water, electricity, working toilets, etc. I went through all kinds of crises from tornadoes to house fires to floods to homelessness.
All of that however, made me stronger and gave me the skills to survive crises like most people only get to read about.
How many millennials can say they heated their bathwater over a fire, ate squirrels to survive a harsh winter, or lived in a van in the woods?
I knew what it was like to be in crisis and so hard times don't scare me as much as it did the people that were destroying the store to get food, but what is coming next does scare me.
A person is a smart, thoughtful, compassionate soul, but a scared person is none of those things, and millions of scared people are a much worse crisis than anything we have seen yet.
Looting, rioting, and violence are just the beginning.
You don't want to be scared in a crisis, that will get you killed. You need confidence and security.
People used to look at me like I was crazy for talking about survival or prepping. Now that a crisis was right in our face, I was coaching my friends and family on how to be prepared.
That's when I realized that all the survival guys, farmers, preppers, and mountain men were now being looked to for guidance...for leadership. Just like that, at the drop of a hat, they were the ones prepared they were the wise ones.
I figured the more people that knew basic survival common sense, the more people that would survive if the whole system collapsed.
And the people that do know how to survive when the power goes out, the water stops running, the banks shut down, and the food disappears will be the leaders of the future.
We need police, doctors, firefighters, etc everyday for everyday crises. Why not have people ready for when the SHTF? Those people will help mitigate the damage and keep their friends and families from letting fear take over.
