The Pros and Cons of Living on the Contingency Fringe

 Consolidate and Reorganize.  It is a military collective task.  It is like an outline that contains many other individual tasks within. When those are orchestrated just right, with the correct priority and timeliness, they become the difference between life and death. Coming to the end of large projects has been like the void between the initial hit and the subsequent visit from OP4. 

Don't get me wrong, I would not dare lament the milestones and accomplishments that have been achieved. For someone who has lived in chaos and crisis on the contingency fringe, I tend to not know where to go from here.  There is a good deal of that going on right now too. 

There are great shifts taking place and this cannot be surprising.  When you hand-push an automobile so hard for so long, eventually, it is going to gain momentum. Isn't this what you've always wanted?

When a military assault happens, it is a surprise.  The OP4 (opposing force) campaign ends and in its aftermath, there is fire, there is smoke, confusion, injury, death, famine, chaos, and above all, vulnerability.

Meanwhile somewhere out just beyond the horizon, OP4 is reorganizing for the second wave. Their relative success has flung them too into disarray.  They have pulled back for a brief realignment so that they may return and finish what they started.

Here in the smoke, screaming, anger, and pain, it is important that we collect whatever it is that we have left, organize it, and plan on how we greet the OP4 when they return.  If you give in to what has been dealt to you, you never come back from it, you neither live nor win.

It is this odd void in which there are no rounds flying that is so much like the void felt at the end of multiyear projects and the cleaning up after them where critical thinking is so important. We are still here, yesterday gives us great insight into knowing whether to step forward or to wait or change course.  This is not to be mistaken with inaction, or dwelling upon what once was.  Where to go from this place, from this time is what has to happen.  That is consolidate and reorganize in its truest form.

Living a life like an action thriller, always racing time, impossible deadlines, and tasks that seemingly could never be obtained, it is now the time to take all those tricks out of the backpack and weave them into a more coherent existence. This is where what we learn can help our days ahead.  As the scene changes, those survival skills are now needed just to live modestly. 

It is a simple concept.  Appreciate what you have today, and use that to its best. From small things to great things: put away the stuff that arrived in the Amazon box a week ago, and make that meal that you know will only take 15 minutes longer than fumbling around trying to figure something out.  Make it count.  The power of now.