You Have To Stand Up For What You Believe In......

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Let me say right up front that I do not and never will, for one minute regret one single penny that I spend on preps for my family and grandchildren. I did what I had to do - what I felt in my heart and my gut was the right and the responsible thing to do.

Having said that and considering the outcome of things (or lack thereof), I must say that I have mixed emotions. What happened? Not complaining mind you. Just confused.

I read every official report that I could get my hands on; Senate Reports, White Papers and experts who testified in front of Congress, 10Q filings, etc., etc., and they wholly reinforced/supported my worst fears that our country was without a doubt in for 'major - major' trouble.

For months, I lay awake at night and woke up every morning with this awful dread and such sadness. I never dared make one single plan for the future, because I didn't believe we had a future - at least life and a future as we knew it today. Needless to say, I am extremely ambivalent now. First and foremost, I am happy that all 'appears' to be well. I am also totally confused. I do not understand. I do not believe this was all a hoax. So what am I missing here?

I spent hundreds of dollars because I felt in my heart that that was the right/only thing to do. My husband is 61 and I am 55. We don't have any saving, and live from paycheck to paycheck in a small apartment. Didn't even buy each other a Christmas gift this year. But that's ok. Material things are just that.

After having said all this I can honestly tell you that I don't regret 'any' sacrifices or one red cent spent to ensure the safety of my family. I have always had very strong beliefs and never regret when I stand up for what I believe in. So my friends, all in all, I think I did damn fine job for what I had to work with. God was with me. Sometimes I don't know how I did all that. Guess I should be proud, and to be honest I am proud of all that I was able to do with but a scant pittance.

I have a daughter in PA who has four small children (ages one thru seven), and I put most of my money into helping them. I have a son who was convinced that y2k was a hoax and wouldn't even store a bottle of water. Because I love him dearly, and because I understand that young people believe they and their world are invincible, I prepared as much as possible for him.

I will always believe that I did the right thing. I did what I had to do. Besides, all those preps won't go to waste now will they?

Sorry for such a looooog post, but I really needed to say this. Thank you for listening.

Dinty Moore Beef Stew anyone?

Fran

-- fran (fben4077@yahoo.com), January 05, 2000

Answers

Dear Fran,

I'm readying for bed before my last vacation day, but wanted to answer you.

Your situation is nearly identical to that of my wife and our three kitties. We spent our small savings too, after doing the same sort of research you did, for months. We share your confusion, mixed feelings, and hurt.

You seem like a truly nice lady, and a very strong giving person. Regardless of what happens in the y2k world, you will do just fine in your new world, and the worlds of those who love you.

God be with you, and yours.

- Jim Young & Family

-- Jim Young (jyoung@famvid.com), January 05, 2000.


Good for you. You did and are doing the responsible thing. By the way - hang on to your stuff - this isn't over yet.

KT

-- K Taylor (KTaylorOre@webtv.net), January 05, 2000.


Fran: How I love that name, that is the name of our ten year old adopted daughter, we adopted her almost at birth, a long story, and have raised her. Therefore Fran, since I love your name, I love you and all of yours. What you have done and said is what a great many of us feel, and have done. I am on a fixed income, retired. I have two grown sons with families of their own. We adopted Fran at when we were 62 years of age. Should anything threaten her, I panic. Y2K was a threat therefore I prepped to the best of my ability. I even charged most of it on credit cards to the tune of almost three thousand dollars, which on my small income is a disaster. Yet I felt that Fran and my wife were threatened, and I did what I felt was the right thing to do. I will never appoligize for that. I also have two sons who think the same as your, that this was nothing. Remember Fran this was a very profound event, an event such as this is not over in a day, a week or a month, or even a year. The last profound event such as this was the birth and death of Jesus Christ, and it is still going today, even stronger than when it happened. Keep your preps Fran and do not worry God watches out for those who watch out for themselves. God is with you I know. Just watch the daily news, and more importantly, watch this forum. You will gain most of your insights from those who post here, they are very wise and intelligent people, and I feel at the moment, the most intelligent in the world.

-- Notforlong (Fsur439@aol.com), January 05, 2000.

Fran, our thoughts are yours, plus, the way the stock market is going here and perhaps around the world, we should not disband or use up our food preps yet... there may be some needy family members out there yet...there's something in Proverbs about "a wise person prepares for his family..."

-- churchorganist (swedishmusic@webtv.net), January 05, 2000.

Fran....

you did what you could to try to ensure that you and yours would be ok

i'm sure you gained information in the process (such as how/where to buy things at the best price......how to make sure the water you drink is ok.....how to keep warm if the power fails.....etc.) and so as a result you must feel more empowered to face whatever will come your way, be it latent Y2K effects or other problems

USE that information, and the information you can learn from a lot of folks here on this forum, to gain an even greater feeling of being in charge of your life

just look at it all this way:

the only thing to fear is fear itself, and the more you prepare for the "rough spots" in life, the less you have to fear

Y2K has surprised the majority.........and i have no doubt that it can and will yet again

-- mebs (andrea@mebs.lurking), January 05, 2000.



My heart goes out to everyone who really believed and prepared for Y2K to cause severe problems and none came. You based your actions on information you believed to be valid. If you had not acted the way you did, you would be irresponsible. You were trying to take care of those you are responsible for. This is nothing to feel discouraged about.

I was so tied up these past two years in preparing my company's systems for Y2K that I never had time to surf the net and never realized the raging debates taking place about what the results of Y2K would be. I also never realized the extent to which the 'Y2K prophets' were predicting severe problems and convincing people that a disaster was just around the corner. I'm just educating myself now (via reading archives) as to what some of these 'prophets' were predicting.

The articles produced (and archived) by these 'Y2K prophets' are very convincing. They could even convince someone who was in the IT field. I'm in the IT field (10+ years) and am one of the real back room people who deals with the systems. Many IT folks don't have a real grasp on what it is we do and how we do it. The unknown often times leads to fear. I believe the 'Y2K prophets' were afraid and tried to make others afraid. I have no idea what their motives were. Some probably felt they were doing a service by speaking about what they perceived as a giant problem. Others were probably in it for the money.

What people like me are very good at is keeping our systems up and available. We do this even though we encounter problems. From what I've read there didn't seem to be many people trying to explain that we could fix the problems Y2K caused because we fix problems every day. The voices of reason I have seen in the archives were pretty much either ignored or ridiculed. So, a balanced picture of how serious Y2K could be was never really seen.

I read on one of the 'Y2K prophets' page that the Y2K problem could not be fixed. Now, if I had read that and had no experience or background to tell me otherwise, I would have concluded that we were in for some SERIOUS problems. It's no wonder people reacted the way they did.

What bugs me most is that even at this late date the 'Y2K prophets' have not admitted their conclusions were wrong and they overstated (by quite a bit) the extent of the problems we would see. They are saying 'just wait until ..... (fill in blank), then we could have problems'. It's very wrong of them to keep people worrying like this.

Based on what I have seen and experienced (not on theory), any/all problems that are encountered will be easily fixed and no worse than other computer glitches that have arisen at other times.

Be happy if you prepared for your families. Nothing to feel bad about. I gather from reading various groups that there are some people who are being very ungracious that they were 'right' about Y2K and are ridiculing those who they feel were 'wrong'. Ignore these people. The reason given for doing this is they need to payback some of the people who they feel ridiculed them. I don't agree at all with this line of reasoning, but I understand it.

Enjoy your new year and all the new skills you may have acquired by having to prepare.

Chris J.

-- Chris Josephson (chrisj62954@aol.com), January 05, 2000.


"I never dared make one single plan for the future, because I didn't believe we had a future -"

You were making plans for the future.

One of my sons is in college and doing good in his studies. I was hoping this thing would at least be stretched out over time, I'd like to see him graduate. Who knows yet what will happen. I've got some ideas but no timeline on them. I hope the people who are prepared stay that way and perhaps learn even more re: independant living.

My wife is interested in keeping our pantry full. It has been useful on a few occasions in the last several months. Don't feel like going into town, can of beans, sanitary supplies, got 'em, and etc.

-- Mark Hillyard (foster@inreach.com), January 05, 2000.


Fran,
Add me to the list of those who spent every spare dollar preparing for y2k. Add me to the list of those who doesn't regret one cent. I too read every report I could get my hands on, and that's why I waiting until April until I decide if I was duped into preparing for y2k. I only hope I was, But.....

Chris J.
It wasn't the prophets of y2k doom that convinced me to go full tilt on preparing, nor the see-sawing Senate reports. What made me believe that there was a major problem, was the arrogance displayed by the self-righteous programmers and their, 'I know what I'm talking about, so just listen to me.'approach. Do you ever really listen to yourself, or is coming across as an pompous twit your intention?

-- SilentRunning (CanYouHearMe@Calling.You), January 05, 2000.


>What made me believe that there was a major problem, was the >arrogance displayed by the self-righteous programmers and their, 'I >know what I'm talking about, so just listen to me.'approach. Do you >ever really listen to yourself, or is coming across as an pompous >twit your intention?

the doomer programmers were quite a bit more arrogant than the pollys. Look at Infomagic. I believe you are simply trying to find the negatives in pollys due to your extreme anger.

-- Realist (don't@want.spam), January 05, 2000.


I don't think Chris was being a twit. I think he sums up pretty much what happened to me. I still believe that based upon what I could learn, a big problem was coming. I am relieved we are O.K., but I could not ignore the nagging doubts at the time. I have my most precious daughter to protect. How could I look her in the eye if she were suffering from it and tell her I could have done something but chose not to? It was too great a risk based I what I learned and believed. What do I believe now? I don't know. It's seems over too easily. I'll probably stop twitching sometime next month.

-- margie mason (mar3mike@aol.com), January 05, 2000.


I am a network engineer and I have been working in IT since 1987, and messing with microcomputers for years before that. I have worked on mainframes too (old IBM 4381) and cut some code in JCL, SQL and ISQL. Many of the places I have worked at had their share of incompetent managers trying to cover up their own errors of judgement; i.e. buying very expensive crappy systems, which would then be patched and added to forever, where throwing the stuff out and starting again would have been cheaper and much cleaner, but someone would have to admitted they were wrong. Well, I have always said I was prepared to be wrong in my belief that Y2K was going to be bad, but I was not prepared to assume Y2K was trivial and allow my family to be at risk. But as it stands, I have lost my family. My wife left when I sold the house, and the kids were frightened at my tales of possible gloom, so they preferred to be with her and their grandparents. (And yes, I admit here, we had marital troubles before I got this bee in my bonnet.) It has been a very high price to pay, but I still believe it had to be done. I could NEVER have lived with myself had I done nothing, and then lived to see TEOTWAWKI. I am probably trying to clutch at straws and pride when I say, "It isn't over yet". But who knows, folks. We all had to assess the available facts (of which there were very very few) and wade through mountains of guesswork and pure propaganda. I still think there's a lot more happening now than meets the eye. If we're wrong, so be it. We made our decicions and we are adult enough to live with that. BUT DON'T ASSUME ITS OVER YET. If you prepped, don't get rid of the stuff just yet. God bless!

-- David Harvey (vk2dmh@hotmail.com), January 05, 2000.

Wow, heavily censored thread here.... Several posts gone from yesterday (the interesting threads- within-threads where polly's made too good of points, maybe?)

-- Bemused (and_amazed@you.censors), January 06, 2000.

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