Here’s How I’m Preparing For The Next Four Years

I can’t predict the future, but I feel pretty confident in predicting that the next four years are going to be crazy.

For political reasons, sure, but we don’t need to agree about that. I know I am right because you can’t find a four-year period in history that wasn’t filled with chaos, upheaval, and uncertainty. Never forget, Seneca reminds us, Fortune has a habit of behaving exactly as she pleases. Why would the next four years be an exception to this rule? There is no normal in this life…except disruption, change, and surprise.

And yet, I do think these next four years are going to be particularly challenging. We’re five weeks into the year and there have already been horrendous wildfires, intense political fighting, earthquakes, wars dragging on, a terrorist attack. My kids have already been sick. And 2025 is yet young!

Need I remind you what happened from 2020–2024? Or 2016–2020? Or 1940–1944? How about the first four years of Marcus Aurelius’ reign, which saw a brutal war with Parthia, a devastating plague that killed millions, and one of the worst floods in Rome’s history, leaving the city in famine?

The question, then, is not how we can avoid these challenges but how we can prepare for them.