Batten Down the Hatches

Duck and Cover
By Jim Kuiken

In the old wooden sailing ship days, they came up with a command to “Batten down the hatches” which has turned into a common phrase…even though we no longer batten down hatches in the modern Navy…they “dog” the hatches now.

In any case, the current meaning is to prepare for trouble, like an incoming hurricane, a ticked off boss, a tough personal issue, etc.

Duck and cover is a phrase, originally from the 1950’s relating to a response to a nuclear attack (which we were all nervous about during the Cold War, and even practiced “duck and cover” in our classrooms…once again, I’m giving away my age…), which is now a common term among the infantry, and means to “duck” when you start taking fire, and “take cover” behind something that can protect you from the incoming bullets.  It has also become a common metaphorical phrase now, meaning to take cover from anything dangerous or unpleasant – again – like a hurricane, boss, issue, etc…

And as long as we’re using former military terminology that is now used as a metaphor in normal conversation…both battening down the hatches and ducking and covering can lead to a “bunker mentality”, where someone hides in a bunker, and then feels so safe that they tend to stay behind walls or in a metaphorical bunker, and not want to come out…more comfortable in a bunker than they are exposed to everyday life.

It can happen to the best of us if we’re not paying attention.  Events just overwhelm people sometimes, and before you know it, you’ve gone from ducking and covering to preserve a bit of control or sanity in your life, to finding yourself barricaded inside a bunker with only slits for windows, and wondering what the heck happened!

Let’s say, (not so) hypothetically, that a series of events takes place over several weeks, or a couple of months.  Things like:

• You’re working on “The Hill” for several weeks to help pass a bill to restore Agent Orange benefits to a group of a hundred thousand (surviving…) Vietnam Veterans who originally had those rights granted in a bill from 1991, but then the VA, through an administrative procedural implementation “interpretation”, stripped those rights away from those Veterans (many who are dying or who have died, or who are suffering the effects now) in 2002, and you see your bill (HR 299 – after a 7 year fight to restore those benefits) going down in flames because of one Senator (Isakson) who lets it die in committee…just like the Veterans are dying because he and the VA oppose the bill, even though it was passed unanimously without opposition in the House, and a majority of the Senators on both sides support it.
  
  
• You’re attending/participating in multiple events (fundraisers, visiting wounded Veterans at Walter Reed, visiting incarcerated Veterans at various institutions, presenting as a guest or main speaker at multiple venues, etc., etc.)
  
  
• You have a major hurricane predicted, and spend a week preparing, stocking supplies, etc.
  
  
• Immediately following that, you have a family visit for about a week and a half, and (willingly) spend all your time with them, enjoying their visit very much, even as it takes you away from your normal tasks which have already been stacking up.
  
  
• You allow multiple people to pull you in multiple directions, each with good intent, but overwhelming your time with their needs or requests, further adding to your own backlog of issues and tasks that need your attention.
  
  
• And the list goes on…

Eventually, it takes its toll, and you hunker down in your bunker, and shut the door.  Just to get some peace.  Some quiet.  To shut out the volume of the incoming…

You can stay there if you like.  It’s quiet.  Cool and dark.  Uncrowded.

And a self-imposed trap.

Don’t get me wrong, nothing wrong with taking a break, getting some fresh air – even walking away from everything for a while just to get some sanity and perspective back.

But then, as my grandpa told me (after he got done laughing when I got thrown off of a young bull calf I had jumped down onto from the corral fence, and ridden for almost a full ¾ of a second...just because), “you gotta get back up on that horse and ride’im!”  As I limped away with my bruised hip, back and ego, I replied “good thing he’s not a horse” – which only made him laugh again.

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So, there are two choices.  Stay in the burrow, or, as a friend (my former Campaign Manager) was once told by one of my fellow Marines – with a grin (when she mentioned that a meeting time he suggested was pretty early in the morning), you can “Suck it up and quit’cher whinin’…ma’am” – and pop your head back out and take a look around! 

Refocus, reengage, and reprioritize your time and commitments.  Besides my already published techniques (“B.R.A.S.S.” and “The Next Steps”), I’m also going to re-establish my time management, but with an updated system from when I went through the 1980’s traditional system training…and start prioritizing what I need to get done, and not get drawn back down the rabbit hole of over-commitment, other people’s priorities, and time thieves, especially #s 1, 4, 8, 9, and 10.  Like it says at the end of # 12, “in short, by not letting the thieves steal your time”.

It feels almost like spring time again…just as the leaves are starting to fall in my yard!  It’s really good to see the sun again.

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