I read an article yesterday on NRA’s America’s 1st Freedom called What is Your Vulnerability Index? In it, author and friend Clay Turner suggests a new way of calculating how changes in our circumstances may affect our vulnerability.

In part, Clay writes, “What if we just wanted to start you thinking about how circumstances and choices affect your personal security? Let’s call such a tool the Vulnerability Index (VX). It would start us off with a base value of, say, 100 points, and would add/subtract points to indicate how more or less vulnerable we are. Add 1 point for every year of age over 55. Add 5 points each for heart disease and diabetes, and 10 points each for nagging chemical dependencies such as nicotine, alcohol and drugs. Subtract 5 points if you exercise weekly, 10 points if you exercise daily. Subtract 25 points if you live in a gated community; add 25 if you live in a trailer park. Add 50 points if you live in Chicago public housing.”

You get the idea. Continuously assessing your situation to identify potential gaps in your personal safety. Is this a novel idea, or a return to common sense and individual accountability?

When we start to realize that our actions and situations we enter into have consequences, we can also acknowledge that we must take steps to ensure we always have an options.

In my mid-twenties, through a previous employer, I attended a TRP training session. TRP, which stands for Total Responsible Person, was not a new concept for me. I was raised in a household that demanded personal accountability. What it did do, however, was to drive home the reality that we are, in fact, completely responsible for ourselves and our situations.

After fully embracing their nine foundational principals and practicing their values, I learned that there were still areas of my life where I needed to shift my way of thinking from blame and criticism to respect, acceptance of responsibility, and increased accountability.

But that doesn’t sound like today’s society, does it?

In a time when young adults demand a safe space and the victim mentality is an entire generation’s battle cry, respect, responsibility, and accountability are not only uncommon, but met with vile attacks. Considering how coddled these young adults have been, what with their micro-aggressions and trigger warnings, one thing emerges when they meet others with opposing views: they’re not able to stand up and fight for themselves.

They only know how to do it by using “feeling” words and organizing rallies, not by rationally talking about the problem using facts or remaining in the uncomfortable situation until it is resolved.

You know, like we do in the real world.

Safe spaces cannot be made for you, you must create them for yourself. My safe space is the knowledge I take with me everywhere; that I can handle any situation I may encounter in my personal or general space. I do this by carefully choosing the places I frequent, not allowing myself to react to others like a rabid dog, and carrying a gun for my protection. I’ve always told my children; “Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% how you react to it” and I live by that motto.

Whether my vulnerability index is 5 or 500, I carry myself in the same manner. I do this because bad people do end up in good places and my only way of ensuring my personal safety is by owning it 24/7.

Put it this way: either you own your personal safety or someone else will.

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