Pride of the Pocket Protector

Are we ever really prepared for every situation?  I know the Boy Scouts wish to purport this fallacy of being perpetually prepared.  I am not prepared to battle a bear or speak to an angry Italian woman about her poor cooking.  That isn't to say I can't, at this moment, begin battling a bear or speaking to said Italian woman.  I am just have never prepared for said situations.  Preparation, in some instances, flows from the pride of the individual instead of the end the of the preparation.  In other words, they convince themselves that through proper preparation they have power over the situation.

Take, for instance, a man who always has a pen on his person.  He is prepared to take down a quick note on a napkin or sign a check or lend the pen to some damsel in distress who, in the largeness of her purse, has indeed not packed a pen.  He is now labelled as the prepared man with the pen, always handy, always ready with the writing utensil.  He takes pride in this position of preparedness and can easily be enslaved under the assumption that his preparedness is the end of his actions.  He begins to be more prepared, say with a pencil as well, just in case he or the borrower makes a calligraphic mistake and needs to erase.  He then begins to carry ink pens that vary in color so as to suit the needs at the time, red for correction, blue to break the monotony of black, green to break the monotony of blue and black which reminds him of bruises, ad nauseam.  Before long, his breast pocket needs a protector in case ink leaks out of one of the baker's dozen writing instruments housed therein.  He is surely prepared, but, in the process, he not only looses fashion savvy but a sense of simplicity and humility, as well.

Preparedness requires humility, without it one begins to wear a pocket protector.