WHAT IS CERTAIN?

Whom to trust?

Threats are on the rise, while surveys show that for some time now people have placed comparatively little trust in politics, the media and institutions that were once considered reliable. Mainstream and alternative media as well as self-appointed fact-checkers present their respective views as if they were authoritative and even parts of research seem to serve lobbyists more than the truth.

What is certain? Whom can you believe? Where should we invest trust, time and other resources? Who or what will not disappoint you or even become a danger? Where and how are life, health and well-being guaranteed?

No one is going to sell anything nor give blanket answers here! Everyone is and remains responsible for determining for themselves whom and what they can believe. It’s actually good to realize that everything we hear from others is potentially flawed and only ever conveys a limited view. There is almost no person you could trust without reservation. On the one hand, however, we can apply methods that are used by professionals to establish credibility, and on the other hand, we can find other reliable sources this way. Criminology, history and literary studies, quality assurance and journalism are just some of the professional fields in which a minimum level of credibility must be ensured on a regular basis.

Personally, I am grateful that during the Covid period my employer made regulations and recommendations based on objective criteria very early on and also advised everyone not to be scared. It’s actually not necessary after you minimized risks to a healthy extent, and it wouldn’t have helped anyone. This really helped me for a large part of the time. If you focus on what is sure to a good degree and are not too quick to believe what is being spread loudly and without any clear justification – regardless of who it comes from – you will live a calmer life, get more out of it and not become part of a new problem so quickly.

Truth?

The term is often called into question. Some people say that there is no truth. But can that be truth then? The term is used below to denote agreement with actual facts and events that can ideally also be proven with certainty.

Dealing with It

It is not enough to just know truth. The fact that centuries ago aristocracy was responsible for great suffering among the rest of humanity could not be remedied by knowledge, organization or negotiation. And even wars and revolutions lasted long and cost the lives of many innocents on all sides. Even the peaceful upheavals of our time often replace one extreme with another and thus sometimes soon provoke the next upheaval, which always happens at least at the expense of the quality of life of many people. We need some changes, but not an unneccessary back and forth.

Actionism does not always bring about improvements. The latter are based on reliable, differentiated and balanced information, calm, well-reflected approaches that initiate changes that can sometimes be small, but – if maintained – ultimately have a major beneficial effect. If you want to contribute to this, you need to consider how well you can integrate the necessary activities into your daily routine. Major changes that require a lot of energy are not always so easy to maintain in the long term. Especially today, people seem to be easily overwhelmed. But some things that seem difficult or even impossible at first can still be achieved in small, achievable steps if you don’t give up! Of course, you need to be sure that the goal is worth the investment, and to determine this we need time, peace of mind and reliable information!

Reliability

Cultivate a useful reference

The less reliable sources of information become, the more conscious we should be of things that are both safe and helpful! It has proven to keep key insights clearly visible on pictures, cards, notepads or screensavers and background images. What you see influences your thinking and behavior. In driving school, we learn to direct our attention to where we want to be and find ourselves exactly there in the next moment. However, it would not make sense to let thoughts revolve around unlikely disaster scenarios, especially if there no realistic course of action emerges. If you consciously and regularly focus your inner eye on things that are both safe and helpful and sort out everything else as early as possible, you cultivate an inner image of reality that helps you to make good decisions as well as to categorize all other information! To do this, of course, the underlying information must be as reliable as possible, and this should be checked.

What is certain!

What is really certain may seem trivial, but should that make it any less useful? What“s clear to everyone is that life on this earth will end one day. Then everything you can both experience and achieve here is definitely over. Period. Does that help us? Yes, because it makes it clear: resources are limited and every phase has an end! The opportunities that are currently available to me no longer have to be there in the next phase of life. I can only use them while they are there! Don’t we sometimes forget that? If this thought helps us to use our opportunities more efficiently, then it’s been was worthwhile! So find out what is most important to you in the long term and take advantage of opportunities while they exist!

What is also certain is that fear has never helped anyone to find an optimal way and will not do so in the future either! You shouldn’t make important decisions out of fear. In which cases have fears come true or made someone’s life better? In WW2, the Allies lost many soldiers when the enemy threw artificial fog at sea, ships could no longer orient themselves and eventually collided. At some point, however, they decided to simply maintain the previously calculated course – regardless of whether they could see anything or not. The losses stopped and the ships arrived!

Of course, everything we observe or experience ourselves is first and foremost safe, especially if it happens repeatedly or even regularly. As long as we do not habitually tend to hallucinate, we are dealing with facts that no one can talk us out of.

Certain however is also the fallibility of human reasoning! If this were not the case, people would not have fought each other that often. Observations are certain, attempts to explain them are usually not. One person sees a contrail and attributes it to humidity and condensation nuclei – another thinks it’s a conspiracy. In Africa, there was resistance to the Covid vaccination because people suspected a conspiracy by whites to decimate the black population. In our areas, victims and offenders were different, but the theory was similar. (It is admittedly unusual what has been done to push people into a risky medical procedure without certain success, but a simplistic offender-victim scheme usually does not do justice to the actual background). Many people realize that democracy and freedom are in danger. But ideas about who is to blame ar as contradictory as can be. The greatest danger on all sides probably comes from those who prematurely and unfoundedly identify guilty parties and attack them. Of course, it is unsatisfactory not to know why things are the way they are. But it is even more unsatisfactory to have to deal with the consequences of having wrongly accused people, persecuted them, fought against them (or more), or having to deal with the fact that your ancestors did it! In such cases, you have to take a very close look at what the mistake was in order not to repeat it!

What is fairly certain!

What we learn from other sources should be examined well – calmly and carefully – and the following criteria can help us to do so. For example, if many people testify to something, it is safer than if only a few do. It is even better if no one testifies to the contrary despite the possibility of doing so. If experiences or observations have been made over a long period of time and in a wide variety of situations, then they are all the more reliable and evaluations made after a project has been completed are among the most important input parameters for subsequent projects.

Insights that people share with us at the end of their lives can help us to set priorities sensibly. For example, most people wish they had

worked less
spent more time with family and friends
lived less according to the expectations of others
followed more of their own ideas
and allowed themselves to be happier

It’s probably worth thinking about this for a few minutes.

Finding Truth

Here is a selection of possible methods to minimize both accidental inaccuracies and deliberate manipulation in reports. Not everything can always be checked thoroughly, but once you have established which sources are largely reliable, you can consult them all the more frequently.

The details will be discussed in a moment, but to summarize, the credibility of a reported event increases proportionally with its

unusualness, significance, observability, impact, comparability, ability of an event to occur despite countermeasures, protection against forgeries and the easier it would have been to identify them, and the better it fits into a coherent concept,
proximity, number, mutual confirmation, accuracy, objectivity or oppositionality of its observers and the time they had to observe it,
the completeness of sources, citations and summaries in corresponding reports and the earlier they and their replicas (as numerous as possible) were produced.

(If the following section contains too many details then skip to the next chapter.)

Entities Involved

We can examine sources, people and the event itself. The less there is between us and the event, the easier it is to determine its reliability and the more likely it is to be authentic.

Example: An accident occurs. People are injured, property damage is caused to cars, witnesses observe it, the police and emergency services become active, the press report it, a friend takes note of it and tells us about it.

In this case, the following could be checked:

Event: the accident
People: People directly involved, witnesses, press, friend
Sources: Police report, records of the rescue service, press reports

Test criteria for …

… Event

Frequency: The more frequently an event is observed, the more closely witnesses pay attention to details and the more reliable the corresponding reports are. At a known accident blackspot, many will drive more carefully and also observe more attentively in order to be able to react to the misconduct of other road users. If another accident occurs, the details that led to it can therefore be determined all the more reliably from witness statements. Several agencies are involved in order to examine how accidents can be better reduced in the long term. The details about the course of the accident are spread further and can be better reconstructed if necessary.
Significance: Accidents happen a lot and not every accident generates so much interest per se that the information has to reach us in the way described. However, if the friend knows that I drive this route every day, he may want to alert me to upcoming road closures or general danger. If he knows that my daughter has been on the route, or even that his own children are on it, he will take note of all the details all the more closely and also report them. The significance of the event has a direct impact on how detailed and reliable the statement of a participant is.
Similarity to comparable events: For example, a report of a typical accident at a known focal point is more credible than an accident on a lonely road where, for example, a government critic „happened to die“.
Slowness: It is not as easy to capture all the details of a fast-moving event as it is for a longer course of events. A car that has collided with another at high speed makes reconstruction more difficult than if someone falls asleep in a stop-and-go and slowly hits the car in front of them, while the person behind them has been observing their tiredness for a while and is also following the course of the accident with corresponding attention.
Countermeasures: If many measures have already been taken to prevent accidents, then details of an accident that has demonstrably occurred despite everything will be remembered all the better.
Security against falsification: If there are many witnesses, none of those involved will easily invent a version of events that would significantly contradict the reports of outsiders. In the case of an accident in a remote area, it may be more difficult for the innocent party to prove his innocence. A falsified witness report will essentially only contain the elements that produce the desired result for the listener and as few other details as possible that could be refuted by others.
Refutability of falsifications: The driver of a speeding vehicle will not easily be able to claim innocence and falsely accuse someone else if he has a – non-falsified – tachograph.
Consequences
- General: If, for example, the accident finally leads to measures being taken that significantly reduce the frequency of accidents, then details of the accident that caused it will be easily retrievable by many residents or users of the road section even years later without research. The report on how it happened must be regarded as correspondingly reliable!
- Personally: Does the report help me to take concrete action or does it just leave me in the dark and despairing of the world? Even if this cannot be a hard criterion for the truthfulness of a message, it is noticeable that many conspiracy theories that have been refuted at some point are characterized by the latter. If there is no clear option for action, the message is only of limited use anyway and if it also contains strong accusations against a group of people who are particularly distant from the presumed reader, it may be that it is primarily intended to create frustration that is later exploited politically.
Concept: Does what is reported fit into a coherent concept? Who did what, with what intention, at what cost and at what risk, and what did they achieve? Is what has been reported technically and economically feasible? Are there enough supporters and what advantage do they have? Is the observed behavior regionally limited or worldwide? Some conspiracy theories can be debunked in this way.

… People

Proximity: The quality of information is significantly influenced by the spatial, temporal or personal proximity of a person to the event. An eyewitness can see more details from a distance of 2 m than from 100 m. He can reproduce them better 5 minutes after the event than 5 days later. A recording – e.g. by the press – can be considered more accurate if it was made close in time. An early recording is still reliable after 50 years. And anyone who is personally close to an accident victim and takes an interest can be assumed to have a greater interest in all the details of what happened and a better ability to remember and recall.
Number: More witnesses collect more details and their statements weigh more heavily than if there are only a few or no witnesses.
Confirmation: Both the presence of the witness himself and the content of his account can be confirmed by other witnesses. The credibility of a witness report increases not only if the relevant content is also reproduced by other witnesses, but also if seemingly irrelevant peripheral events appear consistently in several reports. Evidence such as a destroyed headlight, for example, confirms a witness who reports that a car with exactly this corner crashed into another.
Diversity: The more diverse people of different ages, interests, professional and social backgrounds, character, etc. are, the more important the things they say in agreement are. Different characters pay attention to different details and therefore complement each other. For this reason, even minor deviations in detail may occur without a report having to be discarded.
Reliability and accuracy: Some characters expect themselves to report everything as accurately and in as much detail as possible. They habitually go to great lengths to avoid saying the wrong thing and correct themselves promptly if they do make a mistake. They are known in their environment for their accuracy, which is also reflected in the style in which they take notes, for example. They clearly stand out from others for whom the details (or perhaps even the truth) are not so important. Also, organizations – e.g. certain press agencies – may be known for more or less factual, thorough or complete reporting than others.
Silence: The more undivided attention a witness was able to devote to an event, the better and more reliably details will be remembered. A fleeting glance in haste or even fear leads to less trustworthy accounts than if someone has observed an event in an unbiased and well-rested manner.
Motivation: What do we know about whether the person is interested in telling the truth? Can we suspect bias? If someone confirms something that actually runs counter to their interests, their statement in this regard weighs more heavily than that of a person who wants to have seen what they expected or wished for anyway.
Opponents: Specifically with regard to those who did not wish for the event and may fight against its dissemination, one can examine
- Amount, power and intensity: How many people exert how much influence to stop the news about an event? If the knowledge prevails despite (qualitatively and quantitatively) powerful and intense opposition, then this speaks in favor of the event in a special way.
- What methods do they use? Are their claims testable according to the same criteria as for the event? Claims that contradict the truth are often hasty, crude and undifferentiated. Their representatives try to counteract a factual view, throw around crude and demonstrably untrue accusations and in doing so – often crudely – do themselves what they accuse others of doing. Take a look at whether people or groups who throw around accusations such as „populism“ or „child murder“ are not doing exactly that themselves! If they do, then everything they say must be called into question! They are obviously pursuing intentions that are not good enough to present openly to the general public.

… Sources

Records such as documents or press reports are subject to roughly the same criteria as events and the people who report on them. After all, media are made by people in order to record what has happened. However, other criteria can also be checked – at least on a random basis, in order to be able to assess the publisher of the medium in general:

Underlying sources: Are they cited? Do they exactly confirm the author’s theses? Are they reliable? Some long-winded videos try to use dramatic or soporific music to disguise the fact that the content is not backed up by any sources and therefore has no relation to reality! You shouldn’t waste your time with such videos in the first place!
Quotations: Do they actually confirm – even when viewed in their immediate context – exactly what the author wants to convey?
Headline, summary and content: Does the headline suggest something that is relativized in the course of the text? Are there any discrepancies between the summary and the text?
Copies: Sometimes the original of older or controversial reports no longer exists. However, if it can be reconstructed from matching copies, the same criteria apply as for the witnesses to the event. Many matching copies create great certainty about the lost original.

This list can of course not claim to be exhaustive. Different people notice different details. It is good to be able to exchange information with others, as long as they are equally concerned about objectivity.

Three Examples and a Digression

When it comes to past events, more backing causes greater reliability. Sometimes, however, just a few sources are enough if they agree. In the case of the „Gallic War“ (58 – 50 BC), for example, historians rely on three matching copies of Julius Caesar’s own records, supplemented by minor corrections by the historian Cassius Dio, who lived between 163 and 235 AD.

Much better backing however is provided for the literary work „Ilias“ by the first known Western author Homer (ca. 700 BC). 643 manuscripts attest to it’s original content! It provides the reader with an insight into historical circumstances, the entertainment culture of the time and the underlying myths.

But how much reliability do we then have to ascribe to a document that is backed by 24633 manuscripts and contains verifiable quotations and sources? What if, after a relatively short period of time, people from a wide range of backgrounds, educations and social status who experienced an event, as well as those who interviewed eyewitnesses, wrote several consistent reports in which, among other things, reference is made to 500 other witnesses who could be interviewed for a long time, while details of the reports have been confirmed by evidence found as well as other authors from a wide range of backgrounds and interests? What if observations and research have been pursued with enough time and attention and one of the main authors shows an extraordinary attention to detail? And what if the observed event happened unexpectedly and in a way no one could have imagined and if forgeries are impossible? And what if, despite its apparent insignificance at first, it has influenced history like nothing else, fits into a coherent overall concept and has been was able to survive most bitter resistance of numerous scheming lobbyists and most brutal rulers?

You may be surprised to learn that this extraordinarily well backed event is the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead! There is anyway no doubt about his life and death on the cross among almost all historians – secular ones NB! (This used to be different, but archaeological and scriptural findings as well as research have been able to refute all previously justified doubts). In detail, the overwhelming amount of evidence mentioned above makes it clear that Jesus‘ tomb was indeed empty on the third day after his crucifixion and that alternative explanations for the resurrection have no realistic basis. It can be verified: 24633 manuscripts prove the contents of the „New Testament“ of the Bible – the best-selling book in human history. There are numerous confirmations of sources, authors, events and peripheral phenomena both inside and outside the Bible, all of which confirm its reliability. Authors of reports and confirming documents differed in nationality, origin, level of education, profession and interests. Paul himself had originally been a fierce opponent of the message, persecuted the church and killed numerous followers until the Christ personally appeared to him, whereupon he refers in his writings to 500 other witnesses of the Risen One, who had been able for a lng time to confirm what had been said. It would have been clear and would have become known to us if something had not been true. Luke stands out for extraordinary accuracy in the details, which are confirmed by archaeological findings as well as by other authors. The crucifixion, the empty tomb and the resurrected body were examined for hours, days or even months and are only attested to in a positive way.

The rulers of the time would have had the greatest interest to remove any basis for belief in a king who threatened their influence. The easiest thing to do would have been to present his dead body, but they weren’t able! Burial sites of important people are usually venerated by their followers, but in this case even the location is disputed. The very effective security measures and the willingness of several eyewitnesses to stand by their testimony through torture and death speak against a theft of the body. What would the eyewitnesses have gained if they had died for what they knew was a deception? Under the difficult conditions of the time, no one would have made up a story in which women were the first to find the empty grave, because their testimonies were not given any attention at the time. It would have been a negligible detail which would have rather caused risk to create contradictory reports.

Fierce and repeated persecution has not been able to stop the growth of the movement – likewise it’s not doing it today in China or Iran for example. The event also turned insecure people into death-defying proclaimers of the truth and had a lasting impact on humanity, as it still does today. (The Indian philosopher Vishal Mangalwadi compares the quality of life in his country with that of the West and, in brief summaries as well as detailed writings, attributes all the achievements of the latter to the influence of the message mentioned. In numerous indices on happiness, humanity, freedom, democracy, stability, etc., the best ranks are occupied in particular by countries in which that message – not church, religiosity per se, etc. – has had a special influence for longer and whose flag – incidentally – often displays a cross. The people who live there are no better, however, they obviously found a better way to handle their humanity, the results still having an impact today).

None of this would have been possible if the underlying event had been objectively dubious or if it had not added to the lives of their followers in such a way that they were prepared to let go of everything else. The reports are characterized by a particular accumulation of features of high credibility! (source)

What that could mean for you!

So if this is the case, there must be a reason, about which the sources mentioned can probably provide the best information. If they are reliable, everything only leads to the conclusion that your life, dear reader, is indescribably valuable and so important that God himself came to earth, lived as a perfect human being and gave everything in the midst of it to effectively and sustainably eliminate the cause of all your problems and those of the whole of humanity! You are – like every human – created as a unique image of God with a unique dignity to enjoy life in the presence of His most attractive person and a perfect environment, and to help Him rule the earth! He didn’t have it necessary, but He wanted it that way. You are destined to be part of Him and His eternal, just and benevolent government, and you can probably think of decisions that you would have made better than our rulers. At some point however, humanity allowed itself to be seduced into neglecting its calling and we see the result today. Everything that people decide still happens on earth. Without God’s presence and guidance, however, they do not achieve much good, even not with much effort. God does not intervene unless they specifically ask Him, because the earth is still their area of responsibility, which He does not enter without their consent. However, they had asked Him for a solution and God’s Son died innocently on the cross after living an absolutely blameless life in order to provide a substitute for everyone who wants to overcome their separation from God, thoroughly get rid of conscious and unconscious guilt towards God and live again in their original purpose and have the best influence on their environment! And He has made it easy for us! Millions of people can now testify from their own experience that it works! The solutions they receive are as individually different as their problems, but everything came to pass after they entrusted their lives to Jesus Christ, confessed their guilt to Him, asked for forgiveness and restoration and gratefully accepted it! What helped them can bring you back to the original plan for your life and also give you a security and quality of life that cannot be achieved by other means, either in the short or long term!

Competent Advice and Support

Best friends and advisors can be wrong or even willfully mislead us. However, with the help of the methods mentioned, we have tapped into a source that can provide us with better advice than anything the Internet, libraries and counseling companies can offer. The most reliable documents tell us about the person who said: „My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me: And I give unto them eternal life; and they shall never perish, neither shall any man pluck them out of my hand. My Father, which gave them me, is greater than all; and no man is able to pluck them out of my Father’s hand.“ (source). In the imagery of the time, „sheep“ stands in particular for familiarity with the one who reliably and optimally protects and provides them with everything at all times and for his incomparable care. As far as safety is concerned, you could not wish for anything better, but the „eternal life“ on offer is also unsurpassed in terms of longevity and quality. Should it really be available to us? How does one get there and why so many don’t know about it? The same source quotes the same person: „Jesus saith unto him, I am the way, the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me.“ (source). Here – according to it’s words – the Truth itself speaks to us! It is approachable and can answer everything for us! Why don’t we ask it? It leads us back to our origin – a way that is open to everyone individually! It should probably be worth at least one try!

A passport can only be obtained from registration offices, embassies, etc., i.e. specially authorized offices. If you find this intolerant or discriminatory, you can try at a petrol station, flower store or Amazon. However, resulting failures do not lead to the conclusion that freedom of travel is restricted. The chosen way is simply not appropriate! It is very valuable that a return to our Origin is possible at all! So the Origin can also define a way this has to happen and it won’t be successful any other way! Just as freedom of travel is fundamentally guaranteed in our country, an unknown world is open to every person in this way, a world that has an infinite amount of good things in store for them, in which they can optimally fill a place and in which they can actually enjoy optimal security in the long term and much more if they follow the path defined uniquely in Jesus Christ! In both cases, it would be more than sad not to get to know the possibilities that become available for spending this life and, above all, the life to come in the best possible way! „Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth“ (Source) „But the anointing which ye have received of him abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you: but as the same anointing teacheth you of all things, and is truth, and is no lie, and even as it hath taught you, ye shall abide in him.“ (Source). We have a source at our disposal that can both provide reliable information and serve as a reference for examination as well as enable us to deal with it in the best possible way!

This does not mean that we should neglect all other sources. But we can check everything for consistency with the reference we are in personal contact with and also find out what others are not telling us! It takes some practice to become so familiar with the source in order to extract reliable information and guidance from it, but – as many report – it works better and better over time!

Increasing Certainty

As I said, the greatest certainty is provided by what you have personally experienced, and in this case it is very easy to get there. If the aforementioned evidence is reliable, then we have a competent contact person who knows, hears and sees everyone and is happy to answer anyone who calls on Him in a way that makes it clear to him! Furthermore, optimzed solutions are ready and waiting: „And it shall come to pass, that whosoever shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved.“ (source). So what is stopping you from simply giving it a try? If you don’t get any response even after days, then you will have lost nothing but a few minutes of your life and you will also have determined that this way obviosly doesn’t ölead anywhere. But if you do notice a change – even if small – then you can reasonably assume that you receive the more, the more you stay in contact with the source, communicate your needs and ask what else might be important. If millions are right, then it won’t overwhelm you. Your contact person knows what you need and how to get there. Give him the benefit of the doubt and see what he does with it! So – if you want to know – say something like: „Jesus, if You exist, then confirm Your existence to me several times so that it is clear to me and guide me through Your Spirit into all truth, as You have promised! Is it true what I have read? If so, then forgive me all my sins and show me how I can live safely according to the truth! Guide me and let me get to know You and understand what is important to You. Thank You for every answer and everything You have done and are doing for me!“ It’s simple, and if you notice one or more changes as a result, then write them down and don’t let anyone stop you from inquiring more details from the source. It’s worth it! (Personally, I would like to know what you find out from such an attempt, but the most important thing is that you find out for yourself what the facts are and what you do with them).

Hopefully you can see how this can provide a good reference for credibility checking that can be used regularly, is less time consuming and therefore more practical than having to check everything in detail. For sources that you consult regularly, it is of course also worth checking them thoroughly.

Identification and Elimination of Causes

Almost everyone finds it easy to establish facts through – preferably repeated – observation and to confirm them in discussions with others. However, many are not so selective when it comes to the quality of external information, and the previous chapter should be an aid and an urgent recommendation to distinguish carefully between what is certain and everything else!

Many find it the more difficult to evaluate the evidence! They want so much to help against injustices, but those who proceed imprecisely at this point run the risk of wasting time and effort, making the situation worse and suffering more than necessary!

Not everything about conspiracy theories must to be wrong, but as far as offenders and victims are concerned, they usually make things too easy. This leads to false accusations and throughout history has repeatedly led to the – sometimes mass – killing of innocent people, which is probably the worst possible outcome. Everyone meant well – the seduced masses during National Socialism as well as the vociferous groups agitating against each other during the Covid era. Except in the case of ideological or religious fanaticism, there is no such thing as a group of people capable of such incredible evil. And those who are capable of making such accusations often reveal that they are doing exactly what they accuse others of doing, while those who are usually not do it! It becomes apparent over time. Alleged victims are the real offenders, who also find accomplices far too easily. It is better not to be drawn to one side at all as long as the facts do not allow clear and complete conclusions to be drawn!

Observations are of course not wrong, but there is probably no such thing as one big conspiracy. Arrogance and an inability to deal with both the facts and one’s own failures lead to politicians making the wrong decisions, which then benefit one side or the other. And in the case of a real conspiracy, the initiators will certainly spread all kinds of theories via the known channels that may come very close to the truth, and only draw attention in the wrong direction at the crucial point. You have to pay close attention to the details here!

But there is also danger from the other side: actual threats that we were already aware of have been averted at some point and we are relieved! But have the causes really been permanently eliminated? If not, it may only be a matter of time before the evil returns. Even if it takes a long time, it can still come back all the stronger and who sais that this time it will sucessfully be defeated again?

It doesn’t harm anyone to prepare for the most likely events early on in small, easily achievable steps, without overdoing it. If the government advises you to stockpile food for 10 days, there’s no harm in making it a little bigger, as long as you can use up the food (and replace it with new supplies) over time anyway. And if you’ve always wanted to emigrate to the South Pacific, you could use the occasion of a nuclear threat to the northern hemisphere to prepare steps for the near future without having to finally tear down all your tents at once.

Application

Once we have defined personal goals based on the situation, project management methods can help us to achieve them with reasonable effort. (If this is too boring for you, go to the next chapter here).

Risk assessment

What is important to me? What loss do I want to avoid? What is the worst thing that could happen? And how likely is it to happen? In industry, people try to map everything in figures (e.g. costs) and define risk as the extent of damage multiplied by the probability of occurrence. The result illustrates the effort that seems justified to avert the risk. For example, if lorry drivers are regularly attacked on different roads in a jungle, the risk is the same on two roads if a small delivery is being transported on one and a delivery three times as large on the other, but statistics show that attacks occur three times as often on the first road as on the second.

Fortunately, we do not have to quantify everything in our lives and it is not always possible. However, a few thoughts in this direction can help to assess where it makes sense to start.

Prioritization

If two goals appear to be equally important, we look at the urgency, i.e. by when activities must be completed. Depending on the importance, an appropriate time buffer is added. For example, there is a deadline for filing tax returns, after which activities in this regard would no longer have any effect. The urgency increases as the deadline approaches.

Eisenhower recommends a) following up important and urgent matters promptly yourself, b) scheduling important matters that have time, c) asking other’s help for urgent but unimportant matters and d) leaving everything else until it has become either important or urgent (or both).

Agility

The more extensive a project, the fewer details can be determined in advance and many things only become clear when you are actually working on them. Therefore, not everything can be planned. Plans would have to be revised regularly. Instead, a rough concept of what is to be achieved is sufficient and you start with what seems clearest and most feasible. In the course of the process, knowledge about details and feasibility grows. Regular checks are made to see how well progress is being made, how obstacles can be removed, whether the result meets the requirements, how everyone felt during implementation and what could be optimized. The more manageable the individual phases are, the easier progress is determined and changes made.

Routine

Although the differentiation is based on objective criteria, with increasing routine, professional users develop a feeling that enables them to categorize information habitually and intuitively. This can also help us. However, care must be taken from time to time to ensure that facts are not oversimplified and essential details are not lost.

Conclusion

There are only few things that can be considered certain, but they do exist! In addition, a number of fairly certain findings can be extracted from the mass of contradictory information and may lead to other reliable sources. Being aware of what is certain and helpful enables you to make decisions and also to evaluate other sources in terms of their reliability.

You should not be too quick to believe what is presented to you – especially without sufficient evidence – and you should not leave convictions that you have for good reason without at least as good a reason. There is usually no need to react hastily, because the best decisions are made calmly and with a clear conscience, and these are all the more necessary the more challenging times become! However, it is always advisable to examine options at an early stage and keep them open!

Any changes that are actually necessary or helpful should then be introduced just as early and pursued cleanly and prudently for as long as there are opportunities! From time to time, you should reflect on your goals, motives and results, take fundamental and important individual needs seriously and always take time to be grateful for all the good things!