"Those who prepared for all the emergencies of life beforehand may equip themselves at the expense of joy"

Forster points to a paradox of safety: the more completely one fortifies against uncertainty, the more one risks losing the very experiences that make life vivid. Preparation is prudence turned into architecture, rules, savings, contingency plans, and emotional armor. Yet joy often arrives through openings that such architecture closes: the unplanned detour, the unscripted conversation, the willingness to be surprised. A life designed to be invulnerable can become impermeable.

Security tends to multiply its own demands. The mind that inventories every possible emergency also rehearses every possible failure, cultivating a stance of vigilance. Vigilance can secure survival, but it rarely cultivates wonder. When our attention is fixed on what might break, we handle the present as a fragile package rather than a landscape to explore. Over time, caution morphs into a worldview, and the cost of coverage is paid in diminished spontaneity, narrowed curiosity, and blunted gratitude.

This is not a plea for recklessness. It is a recognition of opportunity cost. Time, energy, and attention are finite; what is spent on tightening every bolt cannot be spent on the errant breeze that invites a change of course. Over-preparing is like overfitting in statistics: the model performs brilliantly on imagined futures and poorly on the living world. The flexibility required for joy, playfulness, receptivity, a tolerance for ambiguity, atrophies when the psyche is encased in plans.

There is also a human truth about feeling. The armor that dulls fear often dulls delight. Joy demands a measure of exposure: to be moved, one must be movable. The wiser aim is not total defense but resilient openness, enough structure to withstand shocks, enough looseness to catch serendipity. Forster’s warning suggests that the richest lives hold a margin for surprise, accepting the small risks that purchase unanticipated meaning, and trusting that not every emergency needs to be met before it arrives.