Roadmap to Resilience - Part 4 - Risk

Inside My Canoehead

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Anthropological and sociological research has reasonably defined the spheres of influence in your world, a concept design, sometimes referred to as spatial. In simplest terms, it is a division of interests, those that motivate us and classify arenas in which we operate. While never homogenous, the literature reasonably agrees that political, economic, cultural, familial and natural describe the portions of a human existence in this cosmos. Everything that happens does so within one of these spheres, often occupying one or more, but we can trace events to origins within these five.

We posit that everything in this world is a function of someone else’s actions within one or more of the spheres, and to echo step two, your decision is how you choose to respond. You, nor I, can make someone say, believe or act upon something, but we have absolute control over both the reaction and the surveillance. In military parlance, reconnaissance is the function of trying to ascertain the intent of someone before they undertake a decision, so as to counter that before they begin or to ready for the coming events. Risk analysis is reconnaissance for your life, simply put, understanding the things that may happen, by examining the world around you, enables you to create an accurate assessment of the threat profile where you operate - for you, the family, community, business and your social networks.

Zero risk is illogical and not possible, the probability of many events occurring rapidly approaches nil, but never reaches it. The goal of a risk assessment is to first identify all that could occur, classify it and select those that present the highest threat. Create a plan to counter and you’ll have situated the estimate as the military would say, doing what is possible within a world of chaotic uncertainty. There is no perfect solution, risks will be misidentified, classified incorrectly, leading to unintended outcomes. The intent is to mitigate, to limit the extent to which you and those for whom you’re responsible are exposed to uncomfortable stress and potential harm.

As each individual, family, community or business will have differentiating considerations, this guide is created as a series of signposts, some will be bright and important to you, others will be dim and distant. Examining each of the five spheres of influence and asking the simple question, “what threats exist in this arena that if realized could cause harm to my interests”, then “when that is realized, does it create low, moderate or extreme levels of risk?”.

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