Being caught in a situation where I have no choices scares me.

It attacks my core value of agency and makes me feel insecure and vulnerable.

So, like a student of Sun Tzu who knows that the battle can be won before it is fought, I spend a lot of time (admittedly perhaps too much) considering ways to build in optionality against future scenarios.

Can I get them all covered? Of course not, but that part doesn’t scare me.

The obvious (or higher probability scenarios) are the ones I seek to cover.

This can range from the “big stuff” like “you will probably have some sort of car accident in the future so you’ll want to have car insurance” to “smaller things” like “you’ll probably need a copy of a child’s birth certificate for something down the road, so may as well have 2 or 3 safely stored in the house.”

When I think about it, there are a lot of these types of events and, with careful planning, or as Lao Tzu says “do the big things when they are small and small things never become big,” I can maintain optionality in the future.

For example, if a copy of a birth certificate is needed, I can go and get it. Elapsed time: 30 seconds.

If I don’t have that copy, I need to go online, order it, pay for expedited shipping and deal with the stress of having my schedule thrown off and spending money unnecessarily (both of which go against a core value of efficiency)…and it’s possible that I am going to be late, or miss, whatever I was supposed to do when my attention was diverted.

This type of planning builds resilience in a system and in myself.

I see optionality and resilience as two complementary components of a harmonious existence.

Being caught in a situation where I have no choices scares me.

It attacks my core value of agency and makes me feel insecure and vulnerable.

So, like a student of Sun Tzu who knows that the battle can be won before it is fought, I spend a lot of time (admittedly perhaps too much) considering ways to build in optionality against future scenarios.

Can I get them all covered? Of course not, but that part doesn’t scare me.

The obvious (or higher probability scenarios) are the ones I seek to cover.

This can range from the “big stuff” like “you will probably have some sort of car accident in the future so you’ll want to have car insurance” to “smaller things” like “you’ll probably need a copy of a child’s birth certificate for something down the road, so may as well have 2 or 3 safely stored in the house.”

When I think about it, there are a lot of these types of events and, with careful planning, or as Lao Tzu says “do the big things when they are small and small things never become big,” I can maintain optionality in the future.

For example, if a copy of a birth certificate is needed, I can go and get it. Elapsed time: 30 seconds.

If I don’t have that copy, I need to go online, order it, pay for expedited shipping and deal with the stress of having my schedule thrown off and spending money unnecessarily (both of which go against a core value of efficiency)…and it’s possible that I am going to be late, or miss, whatever I was supposed to do when my attention was diverted.

This type of planning builds resilience in a system and in myself.

I see optionality and resilience as two complementary components of a harmonious existence.