You Can’t Always Take Things for Granted

I don't know when everyone decided that being unprepared was normal, but it worries me.

Because I watch people—smart people, capable people—just assume everything will keep working. The job will be there. The paycheck will clear. The person who knows how everything works won't quit. The power will stay on. The supply chain will hold. And when something breaks, they're shocked. Genuinely shocked, like they couldn't have possibly seen it coming.

But you could have. We all could have.

And here's the thing that really gets me: when you don't prepare, it's not just your problem. It becomes everyone else's problem. Specifically, it becomes the problem of the people who did prepare, because we're the ones who end up carrying the weight.

I've been that person too many times. The coworker who actually learned how the systems work, so everyone else just... didn't bother. Why would they? I'd handle it. Until the day I couldn't show up, and suddenly everything fell apart, and somehow that was my fault. Not their fault for never learning. Not their fault for taking my reliability for granted. My fault for not being available when they needed me to do the job they should have known how to do themselves.

I've watched projects fail because I was the only one who flagged the risks, suggested backup plans, actually thought about what could go wrong. Everyone else dismissed it. Too cautious. Overthinking. It'll be fine. And then the predictable thing happened, and suddenly it was a crisis, and I was the one scrambling to fix it while everyone else got to act surprised. My preparation didn't protect me, it just meant I was the one doing damage control for problems other people should have seen coming.

I've covered for people who didn't plan, didn't save, didn't think ahead. And I did it because that's what you do—you help people. But they never learned. They never had to, because I was there. My emergency fund became their emergency fund. My backup plans became their backup plans. My competence became their crutch. And when I finally couldn't help, or wouldn't help, suddenly I was the bad guy. Not them for never building their own safety net. Me, for not sharing mine indefinitely.

This is the thing about being prepared: you don't just prepare for yourself. You end up preparing for everyone around you who didn't bother. Because when things go wrong, they don't just affect the unprepared person. They affect everyone in their orbit. And the people who thought ahead are the ones who end up absorbing the impact.

I see this pattern everywhere. People build their entire lives on things staying exactly as they are right now. They don't think about what happens if the critical coworker leaves. They don't consider what they'd do if their industry shifts. They just... coast. Things always change eventually, and suddenly they're in crisis. Scrambling. Panicking. Acting like this came out of nowhere.

It didn't come out of nowhere. They just weren't paying attention. And now their crisis is everyone else's problem.

And I've been through enough to know the difference between people who prepare and people who don't. When something goes wrong, the gap is massive. The people who thought ahead are stressed, but they're managing. They have options. They have plans. The people who didn't? They're completely lost. Not because they're less capable, but because they genuinely believed nothing would ever change. And somehow, the prepared people end up supporting the unprepared ones, because the alternative is watching everything collapse.

I'm not talking about being paranoid. I'm talking about being realistic. Low-probability events happen. That's why they're called low-probability and not no-probability. And the thing about low-probability, high-impact events is that when they hit, they hit hard. If you haven't thought about them at all, you're not going to suddenly figure it out in the moment.

The people who are most unprepared are often the ones who've never had to be prepared. People from good families, stable backgrounds, money to fall back on. They tend to have zero plans for themselves. And I mean zero. No backup plans, no emergency funds of their own, no idea what they'd actually do if things went wrong. Because things rarely gone wrong for them. Every problem gets solved by family money or family connections. They call home, and it gets fixed.

I'm not saying it's bad to have family support. But when that's your only plan? When you've never even considered what you'd do if that safety net wasn't there? That's not support, that's dependency. And they don't even see it that way. To them, this is just how life works. Problems arise, family solves them. They're not preparing because they've never had to, and they can't imagine a scenario where they would have to.

But what happens when the family can't help? What happens when the money runs out, or the connections dry up, or the parents aren't around anymore? They haven't thought about it. They've literally never asked themselves that question. And that's terrifying to me, because it's just another version of taking things for granted. Assuming the safety net will always be there, always be strong enough, always be willing. Maybe it will be. But maybe it won't. And if you've never developed the ability to handle things yourself, you're going to be in serious trouble.

When that safety net isn't there, they don't just figure it out on their own. They find another safety net. A friend. A coworker. A partner. Someone who did prepare, because someone always has to. And that person's preparation gets stretched thin supporting someone who had every advantage and still chose not to prepare.

I had to learn preparation the hard way. It wasn't a choice, it was survival. I didn't have anything from family to fall back on. I didn't have connections to smooth things over. I had to think ahead because nobody was going to think ahead for me. And that competence I developed? It didn't just benefit me. It became a resource for everyone around me who didn't bother. The responsible one. The reliable one. The one who always has a plan.

And I'm tired of it. I'm tired of watching people coast on privilege or luck or someone else's preparation. I'm tired of being the backup plan for people who mock the idea of having backup plans. I'm tired of my preparedness subsidizing other people's carelessness.

People mock preppers. They roll their eyes at anyone who thinks past next weekend. Some preppers take it to extremes, but at least they're thinking. At least they've asked themselves "what if this stops working?" The rest of us just mock them because it makes us feel better about being completely unprepared ourselves. We tell ourselves they're paranoid, they're overreacting, they're wasting their time on scenarios that'll never happen.

But preppers understand something most people don't: the things we rely on are fragile. All of them. And you don't need to build a bunker or stockpile years of food to learn from that. You just need to stop assuming. Stop taking for granted that your job is secure, that your coworkers will stay, that the systems you depend on will keep functioning exactly as they are. They won't. Stop assuming that someone else will always be there to catch you when you fall.

And I'm not even talking about extreme preparation here. The bar is so low. Have some money you can actually access if your bank has issues. Know what you'd do if you lost your job tomorrow. Keep supplies that would get you through a week without running to the store. Understand how the critical things in your life actually work instead of just hoping they keep working. That's it. That's the basics.

But most people won't even do that. They'll keep coasting. Keep assuming. Keep taking for granted that someone else will handle it, or that nothing will ever change. Keep mocking anyone who suggests that maybe, just maybe, having a backup plan isn't crazy. And when reality hits, and it will hit, eventually, because that's how life works, they'll act blindsided.

The things you rely on every single day are more fragile than you think. Your job isn't as secure as it feels. That coworker who holds everything together could leave tomorrow. The systems that keep your life running could break. Your family's ability to bail you out could change. And pretending these things are impossible doesn't make you optimistic. It doesn't make you easygoing or chill. It just makes you unprepared. And it makes you someone else's burden when things inevitably go wrong.

I can't make anyone take this seriously. I can't force people to prepare. Most won't. Most will keep taking everything for granted until something breaks, and then they'll wonder how it happened so suddenly.

But it's not sudden. It's just that you weren't looking. And by the time you realize you should have been, it's too late to prepare. You're already in it.