I turned 50 recently and I'll be 51
before too long. And one of the strange
things about getting older is that you
live long enough to watch several
versions of the future actually arrive.
Uh I'm what's called Gen X. I grew up in
the 80s with a pretty analog childhood
and then I watched the digital world
show up in real time. I remember space
shuttle launches, computers starting to
appear in people's homes, and sitting
down in front of the internet for the
first time in the mid 1990s with
absolutely no idea what the thing would
eventually become. And when I was
younger, the future, it felt generally
like something to look forward to. And
I'm not trying to romanticize the 80s or
pretend the past was perfect. It wasn't.
But there was this sense that technology
would improve our lives. Medicine would
get better. Opportunities would expand
and our kids would probably have more
choices than we did. And I'm not sure I
assume that anymore. And I don't think
you have to be my age or older to see
these things change either. I've spent
almost 11 years on this channel talking
about uncertainty. So none of this is
new to me. The future has always been
unpredictable. But that's part of the
reason this channel exists. What feels
different now? It's not the uncertainty.
It's the direction that we seem to be
heading. Growing up, I had no idea what
the world would look like 10 or 20 years
later. And nobody did. But I generally
assumed that progress would move us
towards something better. Better
technology, medicine, and again more
opportunities for our kids. And I'm not
as confident in that assumption anymore.
And that's the part that I keep coming
back to. It's not that I don't know what
the world's going to look like in 10
years from now. It's that I'm no longer
sure some of the changes happening
around us are actually making life
better for most people. And from the
conversations I'm having with friends,
neighbors, family, and many of you, I
don't think I'm the only one wondering
where this is all going.
Before I keep going, one quick
housekeeping note. Tomorrow we're
opening the city prepping membership
back up. Over the last year, we've added
12 new courses to the dozen that we
already had in our library. I do a live
news related discussion every Wednesday
with the whole community and we built
out our news and alerts section to help
separate what actually matters from all
the noise. But I think the thing I'm
most encouraged about by this community
is that it has grown around all of it.
It's become a group of people who are
concerned about some of the things that
we're talking about in this video, but
they're not just sitting around worrying
about the future. They're learning,
sharing what works, and actually doing
something to become better prepared for
it. And honestly, that's what I want
more of right now. Less noise, more
clarity, and more people helping each
other find practical solutions. I'll put
a link down below if you'd like to check
it out. So, back to this discussion.
When I bring all of this down from the
big picture to the dinner table, I keep
coming back to two questions. The first
is economic security. I have several
friends who work in the tech industry
and these are people with excellent
jobs, the kind of careers most of us
would probably look at and think you're
set. And yet some of them are already
thinking about backup careers. They're
asking what else they could do if their
industry looks very different five or 10
years from now. And a big reason for
that is obviously AI. Now I use AI every
day. It's incredibly powerful and it's
allowed me to do things faster than I
could before. But at the same time,
companies are pouring enormous amounts
of money into figuring out how much work
this technology can do that people are
being paid to do today. And where does
that lead? I don't know. And I don't
think anyone else being honest with you
knows exactly what the job market looks
like 10 years from now either. Maybe AI
isn't the thing that you're worried
about. Maybe you're wondering how secure
your own job is. Maybe you have kids
trying to figure out what career to
pursue, whether they'll be able to
afford a home, or whether doing
everything right will still be enough to
build a stable life. And the details,
they may be different, but the question
underneath them is the same. How do you
build security when the things you used
to count on, they don't feel quite as
certain anymore? One of my kids has
found something he's genuinely
interested and passionate about. And as
a parent, it's strange to even have to
wonder how much that field may change
before he's fully established in it. And
I'm not saying that I think his future
is doomed. I don't. He's incredibly
smart. He's driven. And I know he'll
find his way. What bothers me is that I
even have to ask that question. And AI
is only one part of it. We're already
watching young people struggle to afford
homes. Insurance keeps getting more
expensive. Food, utilities, health care,
transportation. Nearly every major
household expense seems to take a bigger
bite than it used to. And more and more
of everyday life just seems to be
treated as something that's to be
monetized. A house isn't just a place to
live anymore. It's an asset class. Our
attention that has value and our
personal data obviously has value as
well. I'm a business owner and I believe
in business and I use technology every
day. So, this is not about pretending
those things are bad. But I do think
it's fair to ask a pretty simple
question. Is all of this progress
actually making life better for the
average family? And that leads to the
second question, which is the one I
think about the most. What kind of world
are my kids inheriting? If you have kids
or grandkids, you're probably asking
yourself some version of that. Will they
be able to afford a home? Will they be
able to find meaningful work? Uh build a
stable life one day? And if you're
younger and you're just starting out,
those questions aren't about your kids.
They're about you. You're looking at
housing costs, uh the job market, the
pace of change, and just trying to
figure out what kind of future you can
actually build. But either way, I think
the question underneath it is the same.
Are we creating more options for the
people coming behind us or fewer? And
most of this really isn't about me
anymore. I'll probably figure out
whatever comes. I know I'll land on my
feet. I've been through enough changes
in my life that I've learned how to
adapt. But what I keep thinking about is
a world the next generation is walking
into. And if I'm being completely
transparent here, there are moments when
my mind goes even further and I wonder
just how stable that world will be 15 or
20 years from now. And probably a lot of
you watching are thinking, you don't
have to look too far down the road to
question that. And look, I don't know
the answer. And again, I'm not going to
try to pretend like I do. And I think
this is where we have to be careful.
Legitimate concern, it can turn into
something unhealthy very quickly. And
for most of my life, I just assumed
progress generally meant uh things would
get better. And I still want to believe
that. But more and more I find myself
asking a different question now. Who is
this going to be better for? Because a
lot of the systems shaping our lives,
they're being built around their own
goals. Tech companies, they need to
grow. Social platforms, what do they
want us to do? They want us to keep
engaged. Businesses obviously they have
to make money. And markets obviously
reward returns. Political institutions,
they respond to pressures of their own.
And none of these things are inherently
bad. A lot of good has come from those
systems. But their definition of
progress isn't necessarily the same as
ours. And I think most families are
asking much simpler questions. Is life
becoming more secure, uh, more
affordable? Are we actually gaining more
control over our lives or less? And I
think that's part of what people are
reacting to right now. There's not just
one thing we can point at and say, "Hey,
that's the problem right there." It's
really the feeling that the systems
under us are becoming more powerful,
complicated, and harder to influence
while everyday life becomes more
expensive and less certain. And I see a
small example of this with privacy. Uh,
one of the things one of my neighbors
have pointed out recently is all the
flock cameras that are popping up in our
area. And once I started noticing the
first one I saw, I started seeing them
everywhere I drove. And I understand the
public safety argument for these
systems, but it still makes me ask where
the line is. How much privacy are we
willing to trade for security before
we've really thought through the
consequences? And this is not about
flock. It's about speed. What we're
getting good at right now is deploying
new technology quickly. But I'm not sure
we're always as good at slowing down to
ask what happens after it just becomes
normal. Now, here's where I do want to
be careful with this because there's
another side to all this that bothers me
just as much. The more uncertain the
future feels, the more valuable
certainty becomes. And there's an entire
online economy that's willing to sell it
to you. You've probably seen some
version of it. By 2030, this happens. uh
buy this asset, move here, uh get out of
the city now, prepare for this exact
collapse, and this exact specific event
is going to be coming. And this is what
things are going to look like in the
next few years. But the problem isn't
taking the future seriously. The problem
is selling certainty where certainty
doesn't exist. And I don't know what's
going to happen in 2030. And neither do
they. And that doesn't mean that we sit
around and do nothing. And as a prepper,
I have spent almost 11 years on this
channel trying to encourage people to
become more prepared, capable, and
really less dependent on everything
going right all the time. And if
anything, uh I believe that more
strongly today than when I started
prepping uh years ago before I even
started the channel. But there's a big
difference between helping someone
prepare for uncertainty and convincing
them you know exactly what they should
be afraid of. And I think fear, it's
becoming incredibly profitable online.
So is anger and division. And if someone
can convince you that disaster is right
around the corner and that they know
exactly what it's going to look like,
they can keep you clicking, watching,
and sometimes they'll convince you to
make terrible decisions with your money.
And I have personally watched people get
so consumed by what might happen
tomorrow that preparedness actually
starts making their life worse today.
And maybe you have experienced some
version of that. You're doom scrolling
um panic buying and no matter how much
you've prepared, you still feel like
you're behind and there's always one
more thing that you need to do or buy.
And that is not what I want preparedness
to become. And that's certainly not what
I want this channel to become. I've had
to fight that tendency in my own life as
well. There have been periods when
anxiety had me mentally living in
tomorrow instead of being present with
my family, my friends right in front of
me. In preparedness, I think it should
give you more peace about tomorrow, not
taking your ability to enjoy today. So,
I don't think the answer by the way in
saying all this is just to be
complacent. I think it's preparation
without obsession. And the harder the
future becomes to predict, the more
valuable being adaptable really becomes.
And that's probably the biggest shift in
how I think about preparedness right
now. I don't need to correctly predict
which future is coming. I just need to
make sure that my family has options
when whatever gets here. And for me, a
lot of what that comes down to is
learning how to do more for myself. I've
been on this property here for a little
over two years now. And it has pushed me
into learning whether I wanted to or
not. A lot of things break, something
will stop working or I run into a
problem that I just hadn't dealt with
before. I wasn't preparing to deal with
it and I have to figure it out. I had a
well pump uh part of the well pump that
is a switch that detects a pressure. It
went out. I had to go and replace it. It
became a big job. Something I thought
would take 15 minutes turns into hours.
But I ended up getting it right and I
learned through that process. And
sometimes I do get things right and
sometimes I don't. But every time I know
a little more than I did before in food
production that's been a perfect example
of what hasn't worked for me so well.
Now I have had successes and I've had
plenty of failures and some of those
failures they've been frustrating. But
honestly that's part of why I want to
learn this stuff now. I'd rather figure
out why a garden failed when the grocery
store is still open than when my family
actually needs that food. And the same
is true for backup power. I'm not
billing those systems because I think
the grid is going to disappear next
Tuesday. I'm just billing them because
electricity is something my household
depends on. And having another option if
the power goes out, it just simply makes
us less vulnerable. And your version of
that may look completely different. You
may live in an apartment and you may not
have land, solar, or abil, you know, an
ability to set up a garden. And that's
okay. Your goal should not be to try to
copy what I'm doing. Instead, it's to
figure out where your household is most
fragile and then start making it a
little less fragile. So, if AI changes
employment, keep learning and make
yourself harder to displace. If food
keeps getting more expensive, just store
what you already eat. Learn how to cook
more from basic ingredients and try to
see if there's something you can produce
yourself. And if energy becomes less
reliable or more expensive, build
whatever backup capability makes sense
for your household. And the same applies
to information and money. If the
information coming at you becomes more
manipulative, I would encourage you to
protect your attention and get better at
separating what actually matters from
what's simply trying to make you angry
or afraid. And if the economy continues
to get harder, my encouragement is to
reduce debt where you can, build some
margin where you can, and preserve your
options. You don't have to know which
future is coming. I'm not going to try
to tell you I know either. But instead,
my encouragement is to build a household
that has more ways to deal with whatever
eventually comes. And that's where I
personally find hope. There's a lot
happening in the world that none of us
get a vote on. AI is going to keep
advancing whether we like it or not.
Politics are going to keep just being
politics, divisive, causing arguments,
causing people to rip at each other,
tear at each other. Housing costs,
unfortunately, insurance, uh, interest
rates, social media, whatever the next
crisis is, these things are outside of
our control, but outside of our control
does not mean that we're powerless.
There there's still quite a lot that you
can do. You can take care of your
health. You can keep learning. You can
get your finances in better shape. You
can focus on building practical skills.
You can learn to store what makes sense
for your household. And I would
encourage you to get to know the people
around you. None of those things I just
explained gives you control over the
future, but it does give you more
options when the future doesn't go the
way you expect it. And maybe one of the
most important things we protect over
the next decade is not just sitting in
our pantry. Maybe it's our ability to
just think clearly. In preparation, it
should create options, not obsession.
And the goal is not to hide from the
future. Instead, it is to meet it with a
little more margin and a little less
fragility. So, when I think back to the
80s, being a kid and looking to the
future with all that optimism I had, I
don't want to become the guy sitting on
the porch complaining that everything
used to be better. And that's not the
point of this video. The world, it's
going to keep changing. And some
changes, yeah, they're going to make our
life better and others are not. And
plenty of them we don't fully understand
until we live through them. What has
changed for me is that I no longer
assume that progress automatically means
life is going to get easier or more
secure for the people living through it.
And if you've been feeling some version
of that as well, I don't think the
answer is to panic. But I don't think
that we should ignore that feeling
either. So my encouragement is this. Pay
attention to what's going on around the
world and try to build some options. As
we talked about earlier, learn skills.
Try as you can to strengthen your
finances. Put food away. We just did a
video on the channel uh about a week ago
about how to build a one-year food
supply. Get to know your neighbors.
Create backup plans. Again, give
yourself options. Figure, and this is
the most important part. I would
encourage you to figure out where your
household is most fragile and start
there. Let me say that again. Find out
where your household is most fragile and
start there because you don't have to
predict every turn in the road where
things are headed to be ready for this
journey ahead of us. And obviously I
have no control over where things are
headed. But I do have a lot of control
over how prepared my family is going to
be to make sure that we go through
whatever may come next. And that same
principle applies to you. So prepare
because the future is uncertain, not
because somebody claims they can predict
it and they gave you some horrendous
view of what's going to happen and they
say you need to prepare for that. Don't
buy into that. And don't hand your piece
over to the people on the internet who
make money convincing you. They know
exactly what happens next.
I don't know where all this is going.
Again, I stated that a second ago
because none of us do. But we can make
sure our families have more options
wherever we do end up. I'd love to hear
your thoughts and feedback. And as
always, stay safe out there.