Preparedness For Life
Every once in a while I take a step back and I think about the idea or notion of preparedness, and what it is, or what it means, in relation to a lifestyle of adapting to the risks that we potentially face in our modern world today.
Here are my thoughts on preparedness for life…
Our modern world is getting smaller.
While we live on a planet of a fixed size, it has a fixed amount of resources and a fixed amount of livable land for us humans to occupy.
Our human population continues to grow. Our energy demands continue to grow. Our governments continue to grow. Our bureaucracies continue to grow. Our debts continue to grow. Our dependencies continue to grow.
All the while, the world remains the same. It gives the same, in a natural sort of way.
The big difference today though is that we have learned how to leverage. We can pull from the earth great resources, and these resources have enabled a great and expanding human civilization in just a very small slice of recent time on the timeline of human existence.
It is astounding when you really think about it.
Our lives have become longer. We have produced many great things. We have built massive cities. For most of us, our lives are much much easier than anyone before us. “We have it made” so to speak… even if many of us don’t realize it.
The thing is… as I’ve aged, my eyes have opened, and I see and recognize the many many risks that we face as human beings living in this modern world.
While I benefit from the modern conveniences of today’s life, I realize that many of the systems that enable our ability to live as we do… are fragile.
We depend on them (the systems) and we don’t even realize it. Our modern way of life has always been there for us. We expect it to be there for us, now and in the future. It is our assumption. Because it always has been, it always will be.
The reason that I prepare, is for “insurance” …that what I take for granted today, may not be there for me tomorrow. Or the next day.
Preparedness for life, is a lifestyle. It’s about a-lot of things…
It’s about having short term supplies in one’s possession to fill in the gaps when short term external resources are not accessible.
It’s about having long term supplies which include what one needs to survive, to live, to be secure.
It’s about learning and knowing how to use what one has at their disposable including food production and preservation, and any or all other skills related to living a basic and sustainable life.
It’s about a balance with the modern world and preparing for a more difficult world that could come to pass.
It’s about learning how to adapt to unforeseen situations.
It’s about setting goals to get yourself closer to a life that depends less upon the systems around you.
It’s about self-sufficiency, sustainability, and independence.
It’s about freedom from ‘the system’.
It’s about striving to live a life that is more focused on benefiting you than your master.
It’s about realizing and knowing that you can indeed steer yourself to a point in your life when you can throw off the shackles and chains and look your master in the eye and say, “Have a nice day…”
It is a lifestyle, and no two people living the lifestyle are the same. It is unique in that your own pathway to preparedness is unique.
Can we ever reach the point where we can say that we are prepared? Answer: No.
We will always need others at some point. The difference is to live a lifestyle where we are not fully dependent on any one or any system for our survival. Unfortunately, most of the population at large are dependent, while they don’t even know it.
The dependencies are what really motivates me to be better prepared. We are living in a world today where if times really got tough, I believe that we could be in grave danger. Knowing that only a fraction of people will ever be prepared enough if TSHTF, I KNOW that there could be mass chaos, given a major disruption in any one of a number of critical systems.
I believe that most preppers are the type of people who are intelligent enough to recognize the risks that we face, and are those who are doing something about it. Just in case.
Don’t always believe what you see on TV about preppers. Any TV show can find enough ‘extreme’ so-called preppers to make it appear as though we are all that way, but in fact I know that most are not. Most are ordinary folks who are working jobs within the system like most everyone else, but are also hedging their bets just in case something goes wrong. People living the prepper life of preparedness are doing so in all shapes and sizes, all degrees from a little to a-lot, and everything in-between.
There’s nothing wrong with being smart and taking charge of your life. I encourage you to live a lifestyle of preparedness for life.