The world can be scary. There’s a lot to be nervous about. The future is uncertain. The world is getting different. Danger ahead.  

If you know me personally, you probably have figured out that at one level or another I have a bit of prepper mentality.

I haven’t gone full tilt; with bunkers, three year stockpiles of supplies and a weapons arsenal that looks like a hidden room on a John Wick movie. Or maybe I have. I would never tell you.

Here’s what I would like to relate to you today.

In my clinic life, I have noticed an uptick of people being nervous, anxious and scared when we talk. It’s palpable. It’s real. People are becoming more “on edge.”

And it’s not good for them.  

Politics, the border, CoVid is back, but the monkey pox is too!

Inflation is rampant, A decent house cost $800,000! Gas is $7.

My kids aren’t progressing in sports as fast as I think they should. Everybody I see on social media has a better life than what mine is. I’m way more smart and talented than people making 10 times more money than I am!

This internal threat? It all adds up. It stirs the pot and creates a feeling that just isn’t able to be captured with one word. But you know what I’m talking about. This feeling of being on edge. It can get to be almost depressed anxiety.

It’s become such a noticeable issue in my clinic that even my staff has mentioned it. Because I’m the old guy at the office, and maybe they even respect some of my advice, they asked me what I think about all of it.

And…I think I have a pretty fair, “finger on the pulse” of it.

As I mentioned in the first couple sentences, I have the mindset of a prepper but more so from a Boy Scout perspective.

It doesn’t hurt to be prepared.

I use the Cooper color code of awareness in all aspects of life and teach it to my kids.

Perspective, prepared, awareness.

That’s just my reality.

I’m not naïve- I don’t have my head in the sand. I don’t think it’s fake. But I have a busy life to live that I absolutely love living. I simply don’t have time in my life to give unnecessary shits. I save my shits for something that counts.

The rule of thumb that I think works best for me and my life is the “chicken little theory.”

I wake up in the morning, I let my dogs out the front door. Sometimes I have a cup of coffee in my hand like a commercial from the 90s. “Ahhh. The sunrise looks beautiful today.”

I use my morning as the barometer for what is “actually happening.” As in, “happening to me. Right now.” Not the news, not my Facebook feed. I don’t even check those out. In fact I almost skip over anything on TV, my computer or my phone that would even give me a smidge of animosity. I want to start my day out with, “What do I see and feel?”

I’m just standing there watching my dogs and assessing the world.

Is the sky actually falling today?

Is there a clouded haze of Orange monkey pox poison blowing my way?

Is my neighbors house on fire, cars turned over, debris and litter scattered throughout the neighborhood like the morning aftermath of the “Purge Movie Series?”

I know I still have electricity and water because I’m drinking coffee, so I’m fairly positive we avoided another EMP attack last night. Yep, life feels pretty ok today.

Don’t think I’m not prepared. I’m just not nervous for nervous’ sake. I just don’t want to live scared, stressed, depressed or overwhelmed.

Do I think ever Think of real world issues such as the situation at our southern border and think it could be handled differently? Yeah. I don’t think it’s perfect. But as a single individual at 6 AM in the morning, there’s probably not a lot I can do for that situation right now that would really have any dramatic affect. And that goes for the climate, the giant plastic island in the Pacific, gas prices, the cost of prescription pills and evil tyrannical politicians out to make my life crappy. All of these and a million hosts of other little things that stress out people and make them feel like the earth is spinning out of control.

Again, I care- I’m prepared, and I’m observing and looking for changes that tell me things have made a turn and action needs to be taken. Code orange to code red. If you don’t know the Cooper color scale you really need to take a second to look at this for your own sanity let alone your own preparedness.

So just for a second here…Do you think the earth sucks right now and this is the worst it’s ever been? Its not. Really. Check out the book factfulness if you really need it drilled into you.

Look- Earth/Earthlings…It’s not perfect.

But I get deep into history. Just for a fun comparison allow me to tell you a true story. Over 1000 years ago, the people on the eastern coast of England woke up one morning, looked out to sea and recognized the world was out of sorts. A armada of giant dragons had emerged from the fog and were coming to kill them.

That’s where I would spill my coffee.

The dragons ended up to be nothing more than “the Vikings.” Which was probably much worse for them and 500 years of torment, chaos and craziness upended their normal. I don’t know anyone English from 1000 years ago, but I would expect that they had something a little bit more pressing to worry about than we do.

Or how about the guy I met yesterday in my clinic. He was a Marine in Vietnam. Parked in Khe Sanh in 1968. Bombs fell for months- 24-7.

He wasn’t thinking about ramifications of the melting  polar ice caps.

I can go on and on. I often do. You get the point.

I have high school and middle school kids at this point my life and it seems, to me, they are a lot more chilled out with the realities of the world. They just aren’t nervous and scared all the time. And they should be like this -it’s normal for their time.

Learn from them. Emulate their level of panic. It’s not perfect, it needs some change and the world always provides change.

Now, my following has been growing very rapidly over the last couple weeks so I don’t know all of my audience. You may be one of these people. You may feel overstressed, have a lot more anxiety than you should, you may be unable to turn off the news and your Facebook feed. You may be actively searching for how many things are wrong in the world.

I’m not scarfing at you or even telling you that everything is perfect or “Let’s have a Kumbaya moment.” But, we All need to step back for a second and check out own reality from time to time. Forget what “THEY” are telling you!

Is the sky actually falling as Chicken Little would have you believe?

Most likely, like everything we do as humans, we find something to focus on and then exponentially magnify the importance and value that we place on it.   That’s just how we’re built. Probably at the dawn of time it was a survival mechanism that served as well. Now it’s not. When I talk about survival and awareness I always talk about instinct and intuition. As well as intelligence. It’s called the three I’s.     Is very important you use all three and it is very easy to fall into the trap of not using any.

The whole point of today’s article is just to hopefully destress the situation a little bit and help you to feel a bit less helpless/paranoid/stressed and get on with living a good life.

It’s right outside your front door.