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Almost 200 years ago, folks setting out on the Oregon Trail faced a predicament: take too little, and you might not make it. Take too much, and you might not make it either. Successful preparation was as much about knowing what to leave behind as it was about what to take.

A typical wagon could carry around 2,000 pounds, give or take. Out of that, you needed 4–6 months of food for every person in your family. Then came the basics of living along the trail—clothing, bedding, cooking gear, firearms. And finally, whatever tools you thought you’d need to build a life at the other end.

And there was no way to know, at the start, which of those choices would matter most. The best you could do was prepare for the most likely scenarios. If something unlikely came up? Well, then you were depending on God, your guides, your fellow travelers, and your own ingenuity.

Naturally, a lot of folks overpacked—trying to prepare for anything and everything, or hauling sentimental items. The trail was littered with cast-off “essentials” that turned out not to be essential after all.

It was a dangerous journey, as the old video game taught us. Still, something like 90–94% of travelers made it to the other end. (Sadly, many who didn’t were the most vulnerable—especially children.)

What to take and what to leave is a conundrum we’re facing right now.

We are all embarking on a rough journey—mostly not of our choosing. Or maybe it’s better to say a storm is about to hit. Any way you put it, there are plenty of solid reasons to think the next few years could be tough going.

Like the Oregon Trail migrants, making it through is gonna be a balancing act of some preparation, but not too much. Easier said than done.

I’ve been getting ready since COVID shook my faith in supply chains. Think I’m pretty well set up at this point. Still, I have my moments. Mostly, it shows up as the urge to do something—anything—just to feel like I’m taking the bull by the horns.

Take rising gas prices—up more than a dollar per gallon in the USA, with the potential to go much higher. Knowing that almost had me do something rash.

See, my van is getting up there, close to 200,000 miles. I’d been considering getting a new-to-me vehicle, leaning toward a used Chevy Bolt EV and a huge bank of solar panels to charge it up. But having run the numbers, and having replaced almost everything you’d expect the van would need replacing at this age, it became clear that it’s worth my while to keep driving it for 4–5 more years. That’s been the plan.

Then the Persian Gulf troubles started and the gas prices went up. I felt a knee-jerk panic. Started searching online for used Chevy Bolts and other EVs because … I’m not sure. I guess I thought a gas-less vehicle would solve some hazy problem I don’t actually have yet.

I took a deep breath. I remembered my van plan. Then I remembered a couple other things. First, the USA probably won’t run out of gas, whatever the price climbs to. Second, I can deal with the price hike by driving less. If I need to, I can carpool or swap trips with neighbors. If gas gets much higher for a while, expensive solutions aren’t necessary. Better to stick with the van plan and consider small adaptations.

In other words, I caught myself trying to load more on my wagon.

Same thing happened with my retirement savings. I had a couple panicky hours where I looked at shifting my balance of cash, bond, and stock funds. My existing plan turned out to be just fine, with maybe the smallest of tweaks being smart but not essential. Not a perfect plan, but good enough.

There isn’t really anything for me to do at this point. I’ve set up my systems and buffed my supplies of essentials (like my 3-month Everlasting Pantry). I’m as prepared as I can be without overloading my wagon, so to speak. Ready for the most likely problems. Anything unlikely or overwhelming comes up, well, I’ll just have to adapt. We all will.

This isn’t an argument for doing nothing. It’s an argument for not acting rashly in panic.

Yes, take some sensible steps if you haven’t already. But after that? Hurry up and wait.

See, what I’m noticing in myself—and I suspect I’m not alone—is that the urge to act often comes before there’s anything real to respond to. It’s not about solving a problem. It’s about relieving the anxiety of the unknown.

But that feeling isn’t a good guide. It pushes toward big, expensive, irreversible decisions—loading up the wagon with things that might never be needed.

The folks on the Oregon Trail didn’t have the luxury of perfect foresight. Neither do we. The best they could do was prepare for likely problems and accept that some problems might be out of their hands. Too much weight slowed them down. Too little left them exposed. Getting it right wasn’t about eliminating uncertainty. It was about living with it.

And that’s the part we don’t like. We want some control over how things turn out. We want to anticipate, head it off, make the right moves now so nothing goes wrong.

But none of us has a crystal ball. Not on the Oregon Trail, and not now. The future isn’t ours to command. What is, is smaller: some sensible preparation, and how we carry ourselves along the way.

I’m trying to sit with that—to breathe in and out calmly, holding that truth, even though I’m not entirely comfortable.

I’ve got a good setup here at Hippies End. I’ve got a plan for the van. I’ve got a plan for my savings. I’ve got a little margin in the pantry and in my life. Most importantly, I’ve got knowledge. That’s gotta be enough.

The disasters of the future aren’t something I can solve today. Don’t even know what kind of disasters are coming for sure!

So for today, I’m resisting the urge to fix problems I don’t have yet. To keep my load light enough to move when I need to, and heavy enough to handle what’s likely to come.

And when something unexpected does come up—because it always does—I’ll deal with it then. Same as anyone else. Same as the pioneers did.

No point piling anything else onto my wagon.

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