The Obligation Of Preparedness

Knights In the public service must keep appropriate military equipment and weaponry corresponding to their status. This includes items that are in the military codes of every house and those ordained by their employers, such as the individual emblems, the helmet crests, the spear emblems, the sleeve emblems, and the carrier emblems. Recognition emblems such as these must always be provided for the whole house.

If you try to provide these things suddenly in an emergency, your habitual neglect all along will be revealed, and there is no telling how people will look down on you. In ancient codes for warrior houses it says that those who are killed by their own allies because of neglecting recognition emblems have died for nothing. Thus there is no room for negligence. 

Suppose a warrior of lesser rank is going to get a full new outfit and intends, for example, to spend three pieces of gold on the whole set of gear. He should plan to spend two-thirds on the whole set of gear. He should plan to spend two-thirds of that on the armor and the helmet, and use the rest for underwear, pants, shirt, coat, chaps, battle jacket, whip, fan, mess kit, gear bag, canteen, and so on. It is essential to prepare all the necessary items as well as the armor.

Code Of The Samurai | Taira Shigesuke

Opportunities come when fate calls to you. Fate is unpredictable so you must always be prepared to take advantage and avoid having advantages taken from you.

Fate is bi-polar and consistently throws negative and positive opportunities at you without a determined pattern. A coin flip.

You must always be prepared to take advantage of the opportunity of a lifetime or avoid a terrible tragedy. Opportunities like these, and in lesser-form occur often, and are either brought to us or made by us; more often, they are brought to us. Making opportunities is difficult. The duty of preparedness assists in both situations.

A warrior should meditate on their preparations for all things to understand how to improve them. This should be done frequently. Different actions will benefit from different preparations.

Being thoroughly prepared in all situations prevents being caught off-guard. The value of this cannot be understated.

What “prepared” means will differ significantly from each individual and each action. The definition of “preparation” we are using is maximizing the potential benefit of a positive or negative situation via comprehensive preparation, awareness, and understanding.

‘Being’ Prepared

Have what you need before you leave home. Create a system so the items that will most benefit you outside of the home are stored in a location that will bolster your resolve to be prepared outside of the home.

Dress in accordance with your status and what status you wish to be and what statuses you are avoiding. Being out-of-dress can take opportunity away or bring trouble to.

Bring tools that are necessary to, or enhance the value of the day. Whether that’s a notepad, a water bottle, or a pry bar.

The more prepared you are for opportunity, the more opportunity will make itself available to you. You will avoid trouble through preparedness.