45. MOVE, WITH NO OPENINGS

No warrior should be willing to die with [their] swords at [their] side, without having made use of [their] tools.

- Miyamoto Musashi, The Book of Five Rings

I was utterly unprepared to be a parent.

I wasn’t even sure I wanted children. Then one day my wife handed me a card congratulating me on becoming a father, and – as she often reminds me – I stared at it with my mouth open for about five minutes and said nothing.

That apprehension didn’t change when our daughter was born. I don’t know what I expected, but the first time I held my daughter, there was no connection. One month, I was in a combat zone, and the next month I was helping care for an eating, crying, and peeing machine, and it felt like I had no tools for the situation. Overwhelmed, I fell back on what I knew.

Strangely, what I knew came from a wilderness survival course. A grizzled senior enlisted had growled at me while grubbing for roots that he never went anywhere in the bush without four things: something to drink, something to eat, something to help keep dry, and something to help keep warm. Turns out, that advice applies to about ninety percent of what an infant needs. I had the tools all along, I just had to figure out how to apply them.

The same goes when preparing for external events we can’t control. What are the basic things needed to bounce back from these situations, or even better, come out stronger? Depends on the situation. In a survival setting, like an extreme weather event, Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs would say that what’s needed includes food, water, shelter, and security. In a more complex situation, like pursuing a life of service, what’s probably more useful is a support network for when we get frustrated or down on ourselves.

In either case, once we’ve identified what we need, we then put our tools to work to get those needs in place, ideally before the event occurs. That way, they’re there when we need them. Given enough time and resources, and if the threat is great enough, we don’t stop with one method to address a need. Instead, assume the primary method will fail and put in place a backup, or alternate. Then, if possible, put in place a backup to the backup. This is the idea behind a PACE, or, Primary, Alternate, Contingency, Emergency, the goal of which is ultimately to ensure that we don’t give an opponent any openings because we’ve simply covered all the bases.

That may seem difficult, but it’s made possible because there are always options. There will always be something we can do to help our communities become more resilient. Which of our tools we use to develop those options, and how, is up to us to decide.

So whatever you choose, do something. And when you do, be sure to use all of your tools.