On Becoming Self-Reliant
Dr. John Woods 09.26.16
Reading new information and thoughts on survival preparedness recently, I came across an old term interjected into the discussion. If you stop to think about it, isn’t being self-reliant really what all this boils down to? It simply means being able and willing to take care of your own business essentially without outside assistance.
That proclamation, of course, way over-simplifies the whole concept. We all like to have help with all sorts of tasks from planning stages to execution, but at the very most rudimentary foundation, we have to be able to depend solely on ourselves. Don’t we?
Self-reliance can imply a whole host of mindset issues, physical abilities, and performance skills to accomplish a lot of tasks across a wide spectrum of issues. This can include getting your mind around the survival attitude and what it might mean to be left alone to fend for yourself. This by itself can be a tough issue for many to deal with. Most of us are simply not accustomed to the potential of having our entire world flipped upside down or lifestyle altered forever.
Once you get past that series of mental barriers, then you have to actually start working to sustain yourself. Being self-reliant, even now before a SHTF event, means learning how to achieve this. For many people that means learning and practicing a whole dimension of new skills.
Look around your world to decide what skills you need to master to become as fully self-reliant as possible. This may mean growing your own food, installing a water well, or building an outhouse for waste handling at a bug out location. This will require obtaining various tools and learning how to use them.
You might end up having to use wood heat. This requires the likely use of a chainsaw, saws, axes, and the physical strength to perform the tasks. In a household it might mean learning how plumbing works and how to fix it. You might need a homeowner’s course in electricity, carpentry, or other home maintenance skills.
Being self-reliant means defending yourself. This whole realm goes from hand-to-hand, knife handling, firearms use, shooting proficiency, and everything else that goes with gun ownership, use, and maintenance.
Think of becoming self-reliant in this way. Your cell phone no longer works and the yellow pages no longer exist.
