Who Should You Trust in an Emergency Situation?
WARNING: If you do not obey the lawful commands of police and military authorities, especially during an emergency, you may be subject to severe penalties, including summary execution. This post does NOT in any way suggest disobedience of lawful commands. It is about leadership by non-official, self-appointed people in an emergency situation.
Who Should You Trust in an Emergency Situation? My first knee-jerk reaction is, no one but yourself.
And that is true to some extent. Ever watch a disaster movie? There is always some self-promoting person who leads a group of people directly into the maw of whatever is waiting out there for them. And then the smart but unpopular hero leads a smaller group toward a semblance of safety, although many of them perish along the way.
Unfortunately, the movies mirror reality all too closely.
There is a type of person who really wants to take charge during an emergency and have everyone do exactly what they say. They’re just made that way. Some of them are idiots. A few have experience and good training and good judgement, and it would be a good idea to listen to them. Question is, how can you tell the difference?
Well, unless you already have done some thinking and planning for emergency situations, you will have little to base that decision upon. You will not know what is obviously a bad idea, nor be able to determine what is in line with good practices. You can help remedy that by putting a little brain time into thinking about things beforehand. Read sites like this one. Compare. Get a feeling for what some good choices would be. Take advanced First Responder training. Or a beginning Red Cross class. Do anything. Because whatever you do, even if it is minimal, it can pay high dividends in that split second that divides life and death.
Having warned against trusting the incompetent, I have to say that trust is good. It is a survival skill, if you do it right. People have gotten together since humanity began, for many good reasons. Here are three…
Two are better than one, Because they have a good reward for their labor. Ecclesiastes 4:8-10
A group of connected people can accomplish more than one alone. Some can find or grow food, some can be responsible for getting water, others can take care of the wounded and still others can provide for the common defense. This is the true basis for a nation. Or a small group in an emergency situation.
Though one may be overpowered by another, two can withstand him. And a threefold cord is not quickly broken. Ecclesiastes 4:11-13
Few are usually overcome by More, if their skills are about equal.
And in Genesis 2:18 The Lord God said, “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him.”
We need companionship. We become dried out and brittle… psychologically, emotionally and spiritually… when we shun others.
I think a balance between trusting only yourself, and trusting others, is optimal. Sort of like the Cold War dictum of “trust, but verify”. If someone who has ‘taken charge’ is telling me to head south with them, and I just escaped disaster from the south… I’m not going south. On the other hand, if I can talk with a person, get a read on what skills they have, and they demonstrate competence…. and if I really don’t know what’s going on in the south… okay, I might agree to go with them. We may eat it, but it ’s a rational decision. And it is my decision. I’m always the only one truly responsible for my actions. I cannot blame anything on anyone else, because if I go along with something, I’m the one who is responsible for whatever happens to me. Always.
Myself, I tend to trust. Because the alternative is to turn into a loner misanthrope. And truly, I think because of that trust given, I most often get trust received. I just think it’s a better way to live.
That said, if a person proves themselves untrustworthy… I stop trusting them. I’d be an idiot do do anything else. I may have relationship with them, but I never, ever again believe they ‘have my back’. That limits the damage they can do. But I tend to maintain contact with them. Because even flawed people can be useful on occasion. And I recognize I’m flawed, just like everyone else.
Which makes me again ask myself, am I trustworthy? I’ll have to look closely at that question once again, and make sure I always act in such a way that I can answer ‘yes.’ It is so easy to see the splinter in another’s eye, but miss the 2×4 in your own.
