"I totally agree on the country being divided, unfortunately. I don't think I have much faith in the government anymore, because there is too much money (on both sides) to make decisions that actually benefit Americans.
Recently I have been thinking about whether it even makes a difference for me to vote if I'm red and live in a blue state, or blue and live in a red state, or if I live in any state other than Ohio, Florida and Virginia.
So what do I do? I continue trying to work harder on my own life, hope that I can gain some sort of self-reliance, learn to provide for myself and my family and live without what others find necessary. It isn't easy, but I hope that if we fall off the deep end here, my family will be ok."
I could not have said it better myself. Wisdom, that is what she has shared with us, wisdom.
That is what we have to do, learn to rely and provide for ourselves. But, what does that look like to you? What does that look like to me? Honestly, I don't know. Do we need to focus on becoming more agrarian society? Do we need to learn to grow our own food again? What does pure self-reliance mean?
I have been talking about self-reliance to P for the past several weeks. Obviously, Mitt Romney has been in the news everyday, and there has been a lot of light shed on Mormonism. I am embarrassed to say that up until this point I have been pretty ignorant about Mormonism. I knew they had a temple in Utah, that BYU was a Mormon school, and that they didn't drink alcohol. That is all I knew, and it was my fault for not knowing. Did you know they are encouraged to have an entire year's worth of food in their homes? That floored me. What a great idea.
Is that part of self reliance? Having enough food and water on hand so that your family can have enough to eat for a year? Why stop at a year, what about two years, or five years? When is enough enough? Again, I don't know. I do know that I have started to dedicate some of our resources to starting a food stockpile. As a couponer, I get quite a bit of items for free or cheap. Here is my stockpile. Do you notice that many of those items are health and beauty products. These items would not feed or hydrate us. I have battled with stockpiling food because most of the items we eat are perishable. But, I decided to start a stockpile. Here is what I have so far.
I have 6 boxes of organic oats, 4 boxes of pasta, a box of rice, 4 cans of green beans, and four bottles of water.
The last point Heather made "and live without what others find necessary." Does that statement automatically bring images of American excess to your mind too? What do we find necessary as Americans? Smart phones, cable t.v., new clothes, nice cars, big t.v.'s, boats, the list can go on and on.
Finally, I am thankful that we have been able to have an open discussion and respectful discussion about these issues. Thank you for sharing your voice, thank you for being honest about where you are. I promise to respect you and your political stance.
Heather, thank you so much for your comment and for inspiring a discussion.
What do you think? What does is your definition of self reliance? Do you live on less than many others?
5 comments:
I had to start with reading the comments - yes, VOTE!
Even after tonight's debate - I am still undecided. It got a little wonky in the end in talking about Libiya...
I know that we live with way more than we need and I have too been thinking more about stock piling - it is smart regardless of who is president!
I'm glad my comment was so well received! Self reliance definitely means something different to everyone. For me and my family, food security is important. I have two small children and I want to be able to feed them healthy food. There are so many issues with our food supply in this country, I want to be prepared for hiccups - like a recall or a snow storm, but also for things like long term power outages - which happen a lot for us in Maine.
I think it is good to try and live with less - of course I am writing this from the comfort of my couch while I sit and watch Squawk Box and listen to the debate recap. It is very easy to move through life without thinking about issues we may or may not face in the future. My idea is to try and be prepared for whatever happens. What that looks like for you will probably be different than what it looks like for me :-)
my husband likes to pseudo prepare for doomsday scenarios like in the TV show Revolution. He thinks that our stockpile of canned corn would help in case of EMP attack. that's a bit much, after all *IF* that truly ever happend your only as good as your ammo stockpile.
in reality, i just want to outlast a natural disaster AND stockpile as a way of saving against inflation. an extra freezer is a good place to start (to buy a whole cow or to freeze a deer assuming i can get over the gamey taste). as is a generator in case of a power outage to not loose the $$$ invested into the freezer goods!!!
I like to do as much for ourselves as possible... We've been snowed in before and need to have food in the house at all times... I do try to pick up extra items here & there and need to try to get stocked back up as we've been through most of our "stock".
I'm not American but I can see what you are saying (I'm just over the border in Canada) and I think it's important for everyone to vote - but I agree that self reliance is important. I am not going to say that I'll stockpile stuff, simply because my urge would be to give it all to the food bank once it started getting too large, but I think just making your own money, saving for yourself, not relying on the government.. they are all good ideas.
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