New Year Predictions?

“When a distinguished but elderly scientist says that something is possible, he is almost certainly right. When he says it is impossible, he is very probably wrong.” -Arthur C. Clarke

It seems that everywhere you turn, someone is predicting the End of the World as We Know It. (TEOTWAWKI ) Some fear economic collapse and another great depression (Four really, really bad scenarios). Or a world wide pandemic of bird flu with tens of millions dead (PandemicFlu.gov). A terrorist dirty nuclear bomb? (PBS Nova) And so on.

Given the topic of this blog, Preparedness, I’m not going to say these fears are groundless. Any of them “could” happen. But if you live your life in fear and seclusion then you haven’t really lived at all. "Cowards die many times before their deaths; the valiant never taste of death but once." - Julius Caesar by William Shakespeare.

While some may embrace Caesar’s quote as a validation for thrill seeking like bungee jumping, skydiving, and extreme sports, personally I’m risk adverse and prefer to find a balance between cowardice and extremism. Just like financial investment, the level of risk you personally should assume depends on your age and family situation. If you’re young & single and want to skydive – go for it. But keep in mind that many life insurance policies have exclusions for dangerous sports so if you’re married with kids and your parachute fails, your family gets nothing.

Preparedness can help you to live life more fully. Perhaps you can buy a special life insurance policy extension to cover your dangerous hobbies. Or you can “self insure” by building up a cash nest egg for the family to use if the worst happens. By taking actions to mitigate the worst cases, you can put them behind you and then move forward with life.

Bottom Line

I wandered a bit from my original goal for this post; a discussion about expert predictions. This article from dailymail.co.uk looks at 10 famous predictions by experts like Bill Gates, Lord Kelvin, etc that were totally wrong.

Britain doesn’t need telephones, X-Rays are a hoax, TV’s won’t last, Computers
aren’t for home use, and so on.

So don’t lose sleep when you hear some expert predicting disaster. Take what precautions you can (just in case) and then continue to enjoy life to its fullest. What is life without joy?