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Thursday, August 26, 2010

Self Reliance in 4 Steps

As many of you know I have been on a month long excursion.  While trekking across the Eastern side of the United States, I have had to give up the luxury of a home, washing machine, electricity and my all time favorite — air conditioning.  But being without was really not as bad as we make it out to be.  Just by cutting out all of the clutter and junk in my life, I have never felt more at peace and free.   All I have are items to sustain my basic needs.
While I am traveling, I am keeping certain prepping concepts in mind and applying them every chance I get.   As preppers, we have learned over the years to apply these concepts to our life in order to move toward the ultimate goal of self reliance.   Once these concepts are applied to one’s life, the unnecessary clutter in your life is removed, the right mindset sets in, and  freedom ensues.

Adapt to Change

Adapting is how humans evolved, so it is not too far off course to think we can adapt to unforeseen changes.  The only way to survive change is to work with it, rather than against it.  When a person is out of their comfort zone, taking the good with the bad will keep one’s mindset positive.  The only  constant in this world is change.

Simplify

Simplify your life and keep only what you need to live.  In this day and age, over consumption is almost encouraged through commercials, advertisements in magazines, and even through friends and family.   In all honesty, most of the items we have around our homes are more for aesthetic reasons rather than for need.  But, when a person is on the road, one must do away with certain so called “luxury” items in order to utilize needed space for necessities. The perspective of simplifying is not a new one for preppers, but we can always find another way to simplify our lives.  Getting out of debt is a way of simplifying life, as well as finding ways to not use electricity, or even having a garage sale to get rid of unneeded items is a great way to simplify and make money.

Be Efficient

Keeping essential items organized and put up properly will keep everything organized for when you need it.  As much as I like my ”organized piles,” they are not efficient, and I need to make the necessary changes in my home.  Finding new ways to keep order of needed preps, tools and essential gear in the home will save on headaches and frustration of searching high and low for misplaced items.  Begin by making lists, and organizing and grouping like items together.  For example, if a person is organizing their toiletry items, group the items together and organize them appropriately in a spot where you can get exactly what you need when it is needed.

Share Your Knowledge

Self education and self reliance go hand in hand.  In a blog I recently read, it stated that “to show self-reliance is to manifest great moral success.”  The only way for real change to take place is to share knowledge with others.   Have you ever heard of the hundredth monkey effect?  The hundredth-monkey effect is a supposed phenomenon in which a learned behavior spreads instantaneously from one group of monkeys to all related monkeys once a critical number (100) is reached.  By generalization it means the instantaneous, paranormal spreading of an idea or ability to the remainder of a population once a certain portion of that population has heard of the new idea or learned the new ability.
Just think of the effects that the movement of self reliance and personal responsibility would have on a society!  Perhaps, this is what the world needs to get moving in the right direction.  If enough people step out of their comfort zones, and learn to do things on their own accord, this could catapult the self reliance movement.

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