As much as people like to predict when the shit will finally hit the fan, there’s absolutely no way of knowing for sure when it will, if it will, or what exactly will happen when it does. And that’s really the point of prepping – the reason why preppers exist.
In An Ideal World: You Would Know In Advance
If you know when each and every single emergency situation is going to take place before it takes place, if you know how long the emergency will last and how bad it will be, what you’ll need during that emergency and where the best place to be located during it is, there honestly would be no point to prepping years in advance for that emergency situation. All you’d need to do to get yourself through the emergency both safely and happily is to merely add the few specific items you’ll be needing (a plane ticket, a camping stove, a propane heater?) to your shopping cart a month or two before the emergency begins, and voila! Crisis averted.
This Is Not An Ideal World
But the world doesn’t work like that. And it’s because we can’t predict when emergencies will pop up – where they’ll take place, how long they’ll last, or how bad they’ll be – that many of us feel compelled to prepare. If we don’t prepare, after all, we stand the chance of being knocked down by all the terrible things life, politics, nature, and economics can throw our way.
So the next time you think to yourself, “When will the SHTF?” or see someone else try to answer that very question – just stop and take the time to consider the fact that we really can’t know. Not being able to know for certain means that the question, “When will the SHTF?” doesn’t really matter. Why?
Whatever estimate is given, no matter how backed up by evidence it may appear to be, is still pure speculation. Geographers can’t tell you with 100% certainty when a natural disaster will take place, and economists can’t tell you with 100% certainty when an economic crisis will take place – no matter how confident they may appear to be. And although it’s easy to point fingers at the causes of an economic crises after the crises have taken place, really if we knew with absolute certainty that something bad was coming long enough before the bad event, we would’ve been able to prevent or avoid the problem in the first place.
Stop Wasting Time
If you do sit around asking yourself the question, “When will the SHTF?,” what you’re doing is wasting a great deal of your time – valuable time you could actually be spending on preps, or expanding your learning in ways that will help you to better prepare.
It only takes about 15 minutes to go through your winter emergency supplies list and to make sure you’ve got everything you need in case of a terrible snow or ice storm in the upcoming months.
Similarly, it only takes a few minutes a day to grow your survival and preparedness knowledge – through reading survival news, through learning from others’ experiences on survival forums, and by browsing through prepper articles like this one.
Time is much better spent in these ways than spent making up or searching for hypothetical guesses with regards to a particular month or date when the shit will finally hit the fan.
Time spent preparing is productive. Time spent predicting is quite the opposite.
Good article and point! If I had a dime for every time someone said “By such and such time, things will blow up…” I’d have a lot of dimes. Meanwhile, a tsunami hits, or a major earthquake, or wildfire when no one is thinking about it and in an area where no one is particularly thinking it will. Readiness is all.
Historically, the SHTF when people were least expecting it and subsequently least prepared. I sense some poetic irony in that regard when it comes to prepping lol.
Whatever estimate is given, no matter how backed up by evidence it may appear to be, is still pure stipulation.
Should be “speculation”. ?
Thanks!! Fixed.
When I think about SHTF/WROL scenarios, I am most thankful my life has taken me to a rural area, where the nutters per square kilometre ratio is rather lower. I am also rather glad Australian society is less armed. Still some people who will invariably have access to some longarms, but again, the ‘guy with 15 guns and 10000 rounds but no food’ will be a much rarer beast!
As You have pointed out, when things get difficult, people act in unpredictable ways.
I did however follow my own advice about putting out some feelers to see where people in my life waded in on the question, “what would they be willing to do?, and it has been interesting.
A neighbor I spoke to, let me know he was definitely willing to use arms, for instance.
My co-worker said to me, after I brought this up a day later ; “So Dan, if the SHTF (paraphrasing) would You go over to his house to hole up?” I said “No’.
Then He said, “Well, if You do go over there for any reason, knock Lightly on the door”
That might have been the best survival advice I receive all week…
As neighbors, a conversation happened that let me know where he stands, and he may or may not even stand by it, if faced with a moral, or just difficult choice to be recognized only the moment it occurs.
I think You have done a great job pointing out that is when it will really happen anyway.
“Adversity is a sieve, through which the unprepared may not pass” Robert Heinlein
That’s actually very fascinating! I guess sometimes you never know what people have thought about – even those you might never have pegged for preppers have sometimes thought about what would happen if the SHTF.
Minor disasters will no doubt happen. You can’t stop natural disasters, and power outages, job loss, things like that do frequently take place. Maybe TEOTWAWKI won’t come at all in our lifetime, but there are still plenty of other things to prepare for.
Hi there!
Nice blog and interesting articles.
Thanks, Adrian!
Well Thank You for a timely and thought provoking article..and it got me thinking..
It is difficult to predict the when and how and why of what is to come, as You have pointed out. It is a dreaded moment when we all look at each other and it has become evident that we are all going to get a dose of what we do not want.
While waiting…We should ask “What have You Done for Me Lately”
Whatever the Deprivation, it does separate the takers from the givers pretty quick.
I am thinking this is the Time where we should ask each other what we are willing to do for each other to survive. To me, a survivor is the person that can live down their choices, to not stop loving themselves for what they have done, or felt forced to do.
I know there are some who have the very nice Busse “Boss Jack” with a 6 inch blade. It is an awesome knife, and as out of place as any when a gun is pointed at you.
I myself do not have it in me to pull the trigger on someone even if they are sick in the head. I chose to live outside the City, to avoid the immediate “Ground Zero” of human despair and hurt that a Deprivation could bring. So many are barely holding on now.
So when SHTF day comes, this might be a part of the “am i ready ” conversation.
We must forbid ourselves to be unable to live down our choices in the face of those”The Deprived “,even if that means living here on the fringe to commute
STHF will come too early if we do not already know what we would do for each other
Dan7.
It can be very hard to predict what a person will or won’t do when they’re pushed to the limit – when their very own survival or the survival of those that they love are on the line. That’s why I feel it can be very difficult to speak about ethics in regards to a shit hits the fan situation. Typically, people have never been in that kind of a situation before. Thus, while they may assume they’ll behave one way, they won’t know for certain, as the situation is essentially completely different from anything they’ve ever had to deal with before.
We should always be preparing for the worst, yet hoping for the best, I think. Even if the shit hits the fan hard, chances are we’ll still be able to recover. Human beings are very resilient creatures. I’m confident that as a species, we’d probably be able to get past a lot of really horrible situations. Maybe even in less time than anyone might have previously thought.
Very interesting website.. And I love what I’m seeing so far :)
Thanks! :) Hope to be seeing you again, Ebony.
Nice site. Thx !
Thanks for stopping by, Maldas! Hope to see you again.