Why Self-Reliance Is So Important Today
While I’m writing this, we are experiencing a pandemic. Hurricanes are threatening, wildfires are causing havoc in the western states, and an uncertain economy is looming. And so on. How does Self Reliance come into play before a prepper can be self-sufficient?
Self-reliance is a broad term that refers to a person believing in his or her abilities to cope with life challenges without asking for outside help. Some people call it accountability, while others say they are self-responsible.
All the terms self-reliance, self-sufficiency, and self-responsible could arguably refer to the same thing. You can set your goals and boundaries and make sound choices in life, but only if you are self-reliant.
Self-reliance does not mean you cannot ask questions, seek peer opinions, or learn from experts.
It means that you can seek advice and discuss it with others, but the buck stops with you.
You must learn to own your mistakes and learn to live with their consequences. Learn to use any error as a learning experience. You experience full happiness when you can control your life and not rely on others to make you happy. It is good to rely on others for assistance, but do not rely on others fully to control your behaviors and actions.
Ask yourself these questions to determine whether you are self-reliant or not.
* Are you hurt when your friends deny you an invitation to a dinner party or social event?
* Do you feel lonely when you have no company?
* Do you feel irritated when people prefer buying products and services from your competitors?
* Are you always expecting favors from your seniors at work?
* Do you find it hard when friends walk out on you during hard times?
* Does your self-esteem lower when your workmate mocks you for your mistakes?
* Do you always rely on your fiancee to make you happy?
If your answer to all the above questions is yes, then you are not self-reliant. Try as much as possible to get as many no’s as possible whenever you ask yourself the above questions.
Examples Of Self Reliance
RELIABLE – Other people can look upon you for maintaining consistency in whatever activity you engage in.
SELF-DISCIPLINE – You control your behavior and actions. Proper time management is a virtue of self-discipline.
HARDWORKING – Although the term hardworking is not the perfect one to use, it still holds a lot of value and means you have dedication in everything you do.
PERSEVERANCE – the spirit that makes you keep going in light or darkness, in rain or sunshine, and in thin and thick times, you keep fighting hard. You no longer give up, no matter what the challenges are.
Fending for your kids and siblings is a great achievement. Relying on others to provide for your family is irresponsibility at its helm and a lack of self-reliance. Some practical life examples of self-reliance are as follows.
1. LIVING WITHIN YOUR MEANS
Always spend less than you earn. When your expenditure exceeds your income, you start borrowing. As you continue borrowing, you become a slave of debts, and self-reliance becomes jargon to many survivalists.
2. GROWING YOUR FOOD
It sounds illogical when you tell someone to learn the art of growing their food rather than buying. This idea comes in handy only when the demand for food exceeds supply. Many people starve with their money, and the only way to avoid this problem is to grow their food and become independent. Many third-world countries suffer from a scarcity of food and other supplies because they lack self-reliance.
3. BUILDING YOUR SHELTER
You can start from scratch and make your shelter from locally available materials instead of relying on friends to house you. Having your accommodation means you avoid paying rent and do other essential things.
4. THINKING INDEPENDENTLY.
Thinking as an independent person involves trusting your instincts. What you believe independently to be right should be right. No one should stop you from doing what you think is right. You need to develop a route course and be ready to accept and live with the outcome.
5. EMBRACING YOUR INDIVIDUALITY
Being the real you and not trying to copy others. Some parents force their children to choose careers of their choice. You must remain steadfast in your passion and choose the career where your capabilities and passion lie.
IMPORTANCE OF SELF-RELIANCE
* You can make sound decisions, solve problems, and derive conclusions when you have no friends to consult.
* Your boost your self-acceptance. Self-acceptance means acknowledging your hands’ work without requiring others to applaud you. You also know how to appreciate your success and failure.
* It would be best not to peg your happiness on other people. You can improve your mood and life and guide your choices without third parties.
* Self-reliance helps you boost your self-worth. Boosting your self-worth will help you go full-fledged to achieve your goals. You also learn your potential and accept full responsibility.
* Self-reliance helps to become more aware of your inner self. Exploring yourself helps you know your weaknesses and strengths at a glance.
HOW TO BECOME SELF–RELIANT
1. TREAT YOURSELF LIKE ONE OF YOUR BEST FRIENDS
We often congratulate our friends, support them, and praise their strengths, but we rarely do it to ourselves. Be your best friend, and treat yourself when you accomplish something. Do not focus so much on your weaknesses but rather try to cope and improve them.
2. DO NOT LOOK FOR AFFIRMATION FROM OTHERS
Often, people wait for acclamation and praise from others to confirm that they are on the right track. Other people’s opinions should not affect your performance.
3. ONLY SEEK HELP WHERE NECESSARY
Seeking help from others is part of growth, but depending on peers too much for support denies you a chance of learning. When you delegate duties, you delegate power and limit yourself from advancing.
4. EXPAND THE BOUNDARIES OF YOUR COMFORT ZONE
There are things and places we feel safe when doing. To become self-reliant, we must stretch our nerves and accept more pressure. In our comfort zone, we fear trying new ideas and consequently making mistakes. The more mistakes we make, the more learning chances we create.
5. ALWAYS LOOK INWARDS
Whenever there is something to mourn or celebrate, it is good to look into yourself and see how you contributed to the success or failure. When passing blame to others for any wrongs that happen, you hand over power to them.
Can You Really Become Self-Sufficient?
Self-sufficiency is obtaining, having, or producing the resources one needs.
With a self-reliant attitude and skill sets, can you actually truly become self-sufficient in terms of the prepper-type survival resources?
Getting closer to self-sufficiency is certainly not easy without First being self-reliant. However, every step you take is a step in a good direction in terms of being better prepared for external systems breaking down.
Prepping Lessons Learned Via A Pandemic
If we’ve learned anything from the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic, survivalists are one step ahead of the crisis when it comes to weathering the storm of a crushing pandemic.
Before the pandemic and even during the worst of it, many people dismissed the tactics and ideas of preppers as paranoid or unnecessary; however, we now know that we had the right idea all along.
From stocking your pantry with essentials that are likely to fly off the shelves in a disaster to having backup medications, preppers are uniquely positioned to make the best answers in the face of a fast-spreading virus.
Self-Reliant With Self Sufficiency In Mind
Here are some of the most important things everyone learned from survivalists, preppers, and homesteaders so far in this pandemic year.
1, A Survival Kit Is A Must
The most important thing we’ve learned from the survival-minded preppers out there is that the emergency kit is not just for paranoid people and apocalypse-worriers on the fringes of society.
A basic emergency survival kit should cover everything from headlamps, flashlights, and emergency radios to food, water, and medical supplies. These kits are now a mainstream concept considered essential by many Americans.
On top of that, the pandemic has shown us how these essentials work in a shelter-in-place scenario. While many of us have packed emergency supplies in our heavy-duty backpacks as part of a go-bag for evacuations, we understand that a “stay-bag” may be equally useful in scenarios such as a pandemic.
Puzzles and board games are also essentials on the survival kit list!
2. A well-stocked pantry is a good idea
The first thing we learned during the COVID-19 outbreak and any other threatening crisis is that most people will buy will hoard. Of course, we are discussing toilet paper during this pandemic. The data shows that, as people scrambled to prepare for a potential shortage, sales of some items rose by about 60 percent in March 2020 compared to the same time last year.
In practice, we all know this looks like empty supermarket shelves and price hikes. Luckily, the most prepared survivalists already had extra rolls stashed in their closets or stacked in the basement. They also stored stable foods, bread, baking supplies, soap, hand sanitizer, and other essentials.
3. First-Aid Supplies Are In Short Supply
Surgical masks and gloves are foundational in a basic survival kit, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) even includes them on its list of items to include in your basic disaster supplies kit. FEMA also recommends including cloth face coverings, hand sanitizer, soap, and disinfecting wipes in your emergency supply kit.
Many of the most die-hard survivalists already had a pre-stocked supply of these potentially life-saving supplies. And, as we know, it is still nearly impossible to acquire many of the supplies on this list amid the pandemic.
Not only are survivalists well-stocked by already having a stockpile on hand, but they also reduce the burden on the supply chain so that others can stock up, too.
4. Backup Prescriptions Are Essential
Another thing survivalists know is that prescription medications, including prescription eyeglasses and contacts, are crucial during emergencies. As we watched many non-essential businesses shut down during the coronavirus pandemic, including doctor’s offices, we realized that in an emergency, these things could be challenging to get.
Not only are the actual backup medications and glasses crucial, but so too are the actual prescriptions themselves. Should your eye doctor or pharmacy close down, you should have the prescriptions on record to order them from the doctor or online.
5. When cooped up, we cook…….a lot!
Cooking is an important skill among survivalists and homesteaders because it takes many shelf-stable, dry goods and turns them into calorie-rich, nutritionally dense food sources.
If you can bake your own bread and maintain a garden, you will thrive even when there’s a shortage of foodstuffs. Survivalists know how to cook even without supermarket staples, and we know now that food resources can be limited at the supermarket during any crisis.
6. We can’t rely on our food supply chain
In addition to toilet paper, we all watched as people hoarded dry goods and perishables throughout the pandemic such as butter, flour, rice, pasta, bread, and meat have all been bought up by the masses.
As survivalists have long known, we are over-dependent on the imperfect and unreliable mass food production system. Knowing how to bake, hunt, fish, forage, and garden are keys to survival when disaster looms outside.
Homesteaders are the original socially distant survivors, living off the grid, taking no issue with enjoying a life of solitude and isolation. These ‘off-gridders’ know how to stay happy, healthy, and entertained without much interaction with the public, electronic socializing, or even a large circle of family and friends surrounding them.
In their world, it’s simply second nature. We can learn a few lessons from the survivalist handbook as we strive to stay sane while staying home.
It’s All About Self-Reliance
Old habits and ideas you have learned from childhood die hard. Many people grow up depending on others, and it becomes so hard to rely on them on themselves. It would help if you practiced self-reliance,
At its core, wilderness survival and disaster preparation are about self-reliance. When the systems around us — systems in that we take for granted — collapse or are over-tapped, we’re left with a few crucial things: our own abilities and the supplies we have on hand.
These basic principles have long been understood in survival communities, and as the world faces unprecedented disasters or any pending crisis, hopefully, the masses understand them, too.
Self Reliance by Emerson
“Insist on yourself; never imitate. Your own gift you can present every moment with the cumulative force of a whole life’s cultivation; but of the adopted talent of another you have only an extemporaneous half possession. That which each can do best, none but his Maker can teach him.”
― Self-Reliance
