Ten Simple Strategies to Avoid a Crisis

Preventative measures prevent you being subject of a carjacking

Let’s face it. Even when we’ve had our car broken into and find nothing missing, it’s still very disturbing emotionally. It haunts us that some complete stranger was rummaging around in our world without any sense of decency that we’ve come to expect in our little world, even if it’s naively so.  This type of experience causes us even the most stalwart soul to feel violated somehow. And the vulnerability of it all lingers with us for a very long time.

More than 25 years ago my old beater of a car was broken into just so that someone could steal the piece of garbage TV that I had in my back seat—destined to be donated to Goodwill the next morning.  I could have cared less about the TV missing. What threw me into crisis mode was the broken window that was going to cost me more than $50 out of my pauper of a pocket. Even though it happened more than 25 years ago, if I think about it, I still can taste the acrid medicine called Consequences.  I could have avoided the whole incident if I hadn’t been so foolish in my placement of the TV.

We hear of “wealth attraction” a lot nowadays.  Well this article is to help you prevent “Crisis Attraction”.  If you think about it, much of what we prepare for is to prevent us from attracting any more crises in our lives, right?  There will be plenty that we have virtually no control over; random; to no fault of our own. But it sure would be nice if we could bypass those awful experiences that we bring on ourselves, right?

Today I’m going to share with you just 10 suggestions so that you can avoid “Crisis Attraction”. These are EASY disciplines to do. Unfortunately, that which is easy TO do is just as easy NOT to do.  Fortunately, our readers tend to be proactive as a whole.

1. Keep ALL valuables, or even PERCEIVED valuables, from view in your car or your house windows.  Don’t tempt the stupid criminals, Friends! Remember, ALL criminals are stupid.

Always lock your door–inside and outside

2. ALWAYS lock ALL of your car doors as soon as you get seated in your vehicle. Carjackings are thwarted with this method!

3. MANUALLY unlock your driver side door when you’re going to fill up your tank with fuel.  Too many cars nowadays unlock ALL of the doors when you go to exit your car which leaves your purse or other valuables ripe for the pickings for prepared criminals who sneak into your unlocked passenger side door and take what’s handy.

4. ALWAYS keep your house doors locked. When you enter your home, you lock the door behind you.  No excuses.  Do I really need to rehash all of the horrific crimes that could have been prevented if this one rule had been observed? If you want to help someone needy, DONATE. Don’t put your emotional and mental any physical health in jeopardy just because you think you’re somehow being more Christlike by never locking your doors. (Seriously, I’ve actually heard the excuse “if they need it more than me, then they are welcome to it.” Rubbish! ) You wouldn’t believe the tens of thousands of crimes that could have been prevented with this ONE discipline!

5. NEVER answer the door to someone you do not know! Being SAFE is the priority. Do you really care if someone that you don’t know perceives you as being rude just because you insist on talking to them through the door?  This means that you don’t answer the door unless you have a way to IDENTIFY who’s at the door!  I strongly suggest you get a telescopic peephole  (or a Ring doorbell system) if you’ve got a regular door.  It allows you to stand back from the door as far as 6 feet and still be able to see clearly who’s at the door.

6. NEVER take a uniform for granted.  Nowadays, it doesn’t take much for a person to convert their criminal wardrobe to a respectable wardrobe that resembles a police officer, UPS/Fed Ex, or power company worker.  They have a uniform? So what? If you don’t know them, you don’t open the door to them. Period.

Don’t give out personal information to people you did not call

7. NEVER give out personal information to a person that YOU did not call.  My father taught us kids this habit early on. Periodically there’d be a caller ask “To whom am I speaking” when calling the house. Dad would always respond “Who were you calling?!”  He never provided personal information to anyone calling him.  Period. No exceptions.

8. If it has your name AND address on it, SHRED it, don’t just throw it in the trash.  An identity thief can simply establish identity with a piece of mail that has “their” name and address on it.  Don’t give them the ammo, friends. I likewise suggest that instead of keeping your registration IN your car, you merely keep a PICTURE of your registration in your phone. Don’t give your friendly neighborhood car thief your home address too!

9. Always leave room between yourself and the cars around you for you to “get away” if necessary.  I confess, learning how to drive on the busy Connecticut parkways, I learned to tailgate like the best of them. But when it comes to driving defensively, I’ve learned to overcome my tailgating ways ESPECIALLY when stopped at a light or in traffic.  Bottom line, when you’re stopped, you’re an easy target. So leave yourself some options by not pulling up so close to the car in front of you.

10. Last, but definitely not least, you can be friendly and strike up conversations with people. Frankly, we need more of that. But for crying out loud, DON’T GIVE AWAY PERSONAL DETAILS ABOUT YOUR LIFE to people you don’t know AND trust. If they aren’t someone that you would trust your children with, then don’t trust them with any information that would give them access to your children. This includes social media.  I can not believe how many times people just volunteer personal information to me within 30 seconds of meeting me. If I was a bad person, I could have made out like the #1 bandit by now! “Trust, but verify” is our household motto. 😉

Victim or Volunteer?

One of the most important ways to prevent being the target of a crime is to fully accept responsibility for preventing as much as you possibly can whilst still exercising your unalienable rights.  You’ll notice that I did not use the word “victim” anywhere in this article.  The reason being is that with a few obvious exceptions, I believe wholeheartedly–There are No Victims, Only Volunteers.  Take the picture to the left for an example. I personally took this picture of the interior of this person’s car in a Wal-mart parking lot. Yep, you can bet that I was shaking my head whilst doing so.  If the wallet wasn’t enough of a target, how about the camera? (personal info in the pic was modified to protect the Volunteer) So what if there are cameras everywhere we go nowadays?  In less than 15 seconds a skilled criminal could have been in and out of this car and wreaked havoc on this person’s lifestyle for many years down the road.  I was SO shocked at how brazenly foolish this person was to leave their wallet so clearly visible in their car, that I even thought for a moment that I was witnessing some kind of sting operation in an attempt to catch a car thief.

I hope this brief list helps some of you to prevent you from volunteering to attracting a crisis!