hope for the best, but plan for the worst.

Somewhere in my education as an engineer, a professor said the title of this post.  And its true in life these days.

Every day, we see news that is worse than the day before.  The lies. The gaslighting.  The The stupidity of it all.  It's kind of astounding how it's happening, mostly unchecked. It's hard to focus on any single thing, or even a couple of issues, because it just keeps going. 

Things may look bad.  But, I try to be a little philosophical and channel my inner Yoda on this and remind myself that the future is uncertain.

Remain hopeful that tomorrow will be better.  And take small actions to make that a reality in our lives.

But bigger picture,  I think its important to turn off the constant news, and stay off of social media as much as possible (doom scrolling is never a good thing!)

Be a true skeptic of everything you consume. Remember that often "influencers" whether on TV, the radio, or on the interwebs are in it for clicks, fame, or money.

But with that said, the "plan for the worst part" is that we should all have options in our lives. If things were to go wildly wrong, and "we" felt the need to leave, where would we go? This is the time to be considering that eventuality. 

If you're considering leaving the country, there are places that offer citizenship by investment, have a golden visa of some kind, have a residency program, offer some kind of option for retirees to live there, etc. 

Or you could look at citizenship requirements for a place you like, maybe thriugh residency or a work visa. Or maybe you have an ancester (like a grandparent) who came to the US, and that country of origin offers citizenship.

Step one is to come up with a list of some options for yourself and people you care about. And do a little research (haha the irony!) on citizenship or residency in those places. 

It never hurts to have options. Even if things suddenly look better (I can dream!)