Preparedness and the NEW American Dream

Preparedness exists to protect our lives, to insulate our choices from exogenous shock, those nefarious and random acts that affect how we live our lives. If done correctly, it facilitates, not restrains opportunities. You have the ability to extend, to reach for a goal, outside your comfort zone knowing that when something goes astray, you’ve considered the potential, created a plan or offramp, thus supporting your pursuit of excellence.

But reality is reality. Illogical operations and goals are far more difficult to insulate, they expose considerable portions of your life to more severe influence. One grounding principle in life and preparedness is that you must accept the world you live in, the location you’ve chosen to reside. These influence everything, thus your need to understand and embrace the world as it is, however that is constructed. This is the historical normative versus positive struggle, seeing the world not for what you think it should be, or how you wish it was organized, but as it is, warts and all.

This is where many in today’s modern, technologically enabled society struggle. The American Dream is loosely defined as the ideal lifestyle, held up by the majority of the younger population as what you “should” be pursuing, your goal. The dream is present for pursuit only because that is the lifestyle facilitated and made possible by the current day economic structure. There cannot be an American Dream that is unattainable, for if you couldn’t identify anyone with that lifestyle in your generation, there would be no standard against which you could measure your progress. The American Dream is living, it morphs and adapts to the underlying economic realities of the day. It never dies, it simply moves on to something new.

For the audio fans, our podcast episode on this idea: Inside My Canoehead

The key to success is embracing this concept, to see the American Dream for what it is in 2024, not bemoan about not being able to access a lifestyle facilitated by the post WW2 industrial world, the one enjoyed by the silent and early boomer generations. Far too many brilliant minds consistently complain about lack of access to something that is not supported by the modern, technologically enabled economic model. Those who find success in life are far more in the positivism camp, those that see the world, including economic, political, cultural and familial conditions as they are. It is never about whether you or I agree with it, in fact that is quite irrelevant. Success is grounded in understanding the playing field.

I’ve written before about the need to incorporate the military concept of intelligence preparation of the battle space (IPB) into emergency management (EM). I’ve coined the new concept as intelligence preparation of the disaster space (IPD), a way of framing the world as it exists, for the EM staff to understand the people, meteorological, natural, political, economic and cultural ideals and forces at play in an operational area. For personal preparedness, this same assessment is conducted as part of the construction of your personal plan, understanding the hazard environment, assessing and measuring your personal risk against your risk tolerance matrix and developing areas where action is required and accepting others where you cannot or chose not to influence. The key to success in preparedness in truly embracing the environment in which you operate as it is, not how you would like it, but exactly as it presents itself, both challenges and opportunities.

The modern American Dream is what the Internet fuelled economy supports, not what you or I would like. A profound difference from the boomer generation’s dream, the modern one is grounded in where success is found in today’s economic reality. First, there is the traditional workforce, the tradespeople, public servants and societal support professions - doctors, lawyers, engineers. Their existence, renumeration, workflow changes with time, but their training and roles are consistent. A former Canadian Prime Minister described the workforce in two categories, somewhere and anywhere. A simple question as to whether your role requires you to be in a certain place to execute the task or the anywhere crowd, those who could live literally anywhere there is a broadband Internet connection. Most of the traditional professions fall into the somewhere classification. They might see the silent generation’s American Dream as a goal due to their reasonable stability, but they are not the drivers of the new economic model. The anywhere crowd owns that title.

The modern technologically enabled society transformed work, from a traditional flow model of education, hired for salary, promotions, eventually retirement on pension. Now, the economy has moved to a knowledge and skill based environment. You develop something that is marketable and you sell it on the global marketplace, the Internet has opened up access to the global customer base. No longer are organizations or businesses seeking long term employees, in fact the balance of the workforce in this sector is gig - contract work. These individuals learn excellence in a narrow niche, market that for contracts, some can be years resembling stable employment, but are likely to be shorter single task events. Employers hire long term for core parts of their business and contract out supporting elements of marketing, graphic design, bookkeeping, accounting, legal, etc. The economy is speaking volumes about how to earn an income with growth potential in 2024, though few are listening.

The NEW American Dream is the freedom found in working your passion, developing an expertise and living your lifestyle anywhere. If your love is graphic design, the previous economic model called for you to go to a college or university, pay huge sums for a formal education, create a CV and attempt to be hired at a firm, where you would hopefully progress in the hierarchy, learn more and contribute to the company’s pension plan. Today’s economic system calls for your expertise, no one really cares about your education, they want to see your skills and knowledge, compensated at a rate commensurate with skill, to complete a task, then remain available should they need something else. The freedom to have multiple clients across the globe, constantly challenging your skills in different environments.

The huge difference is that responsibility lies squarely on the shoulders of the individual. They choose a skill or knowledge, become marketable in their field, sell their ability on the Internet and create wealth, contributing to their own retirement. This mirrors the successful preparedness strategy for 2024, which is firmly grounded in individual responsibility. The world is becoming more chaotic due to a number of natural, political, economic, cultural and familial influences and if you are to succeed and take those leaps of faith in your pursuit of goals, you’ll need a safety blanket. That used to be provided in the silent and boomer generations through stability and confidence in long term guaranteed employment in a profession at a stable and profitable company.

Those days are past, now your safety blanket is your robust personal preparedness plan, one that begins with the initial 20% of preparedness related to the traditional considerations of natural hazards, but embraces the other 80%, the more impactful world of the economic, political, cultural and familial hazards present in today’s modern, technologically enabled society.

The American Dream is alive and well, those who see it in the positive light are successful, adapting to their environment. It’s there for the taking, success in life is a personal responsibility. You’ve chosen to live where you do, embrace the economic realities for what they are, find the opportunities and chase your dreams. Wrapping that in a blanket of preparedness is the final gift to you and your family, the protection and insulation that will enable you to both believe in yourself and take that leap of faith.