Dealing with discouragement

[Chic Rustler]

I am in awe of my grandparents who raised 7 children and fed them from small farmsteads. No equipment except the hand tools and borrowed the plow horse "Nellie" in early Spring to get the first turn of the garden behind them. Can't even begin to feel what must have been "pressure" to hoe a garden large enough to feed 9 people!!! Canned, pickled, dried...all their feed. Talk about needing to hunt? They had no electric, a well with a bucket. Some chickens. Heated & cooked with wood.

It has taken many, many years to realize what a feat that was

They were much stronger than this generation for sure. That's clean living

 

[Chic Rustler]

I guess you could sum it up with one word.

Mettle

 

[Hinotori]

Oh yes. That seems to be my life the last couple years. It is getting better here now.

Hubby getting the new job helped a ton with the stress. It may only pay 2/3 of what the old job did, but knowing he will have a job that isn't going away and isn't going to send him off all over the country for 10 months of the year is worth it. The old place kept laying off people and only bringing them back to send on road trips. That left me to try and take care of things at home that really required two people to do.

I put some plans on hold last year knowing I just couldn't do it all alone with my health. Sorted priorities

 

[Mini Horses]

I put some plans on hold last year knowing I just couldn't do it all alone with my health. Sorted priorities

While hard & sad at the time, you were very alert & smart to do this! This is where we often attempt to do anyway & then things don't work out. Self destruction. I agree, it is so much nicer (often necessary) to have two to work at projects, even a small garden!! Even with full abilities and health, it's great to have another of like mind to just emotionally share.

Glad DH will now be around to share. You can always "cut-back" the needs and work with less -- not saying fun but, can work.

 

[Mini Horses]

I guess you could sum it up with one word.

Mettle

That, too. Survival for sure.

Thinking about this, I should point out....this was about 90 - 100 yrs back. I'm 72 now, mom was 21 when I was born, she was a middle child. All children had to help garden, can, etc.

WOW that math is sure an eye opener Time flies.


Good thoughts.

 

[Chic Rustler]

That, too. Survival for sure.

Thinking about this, I should point out....this was about 90 - 100 yrs back. I'm 72 now, mom was 21 when I was born, she was a middle child. All children had to help garden, can, etc.

WOW that math is sure an eye opener Time flies.


Good thoughts.

We are lucky to be able to try what they did to survive as a hobby with the grocery store as a safety net.

 

[treerooted]

I think it's incredibly more complicated then just mettle and toughness: societal structure and norms, family background, opportunities, constraints, knowledge, etc etc etc, are all influences on how "easy" a self-sufficient type lifestyle may be.
Don't forget, people have been living in cities for thousands of years. You could just as easily taken a 1800's city dweller from New York who would starve their first year of rural living as someone in a similar circumstance today. The difference is that more people live in cities now so there's been a huge shift in knowledge and lifestyle overall. (along with the changes brought about by mechanization, technology, business, globalization and such). I think the past tends to be romanticized. People have generally always strove to make their lives easier and sought contentment. People endure true hardships not because they want to but because they have to.

I don't want anyone here to think that the reason they may not succeed in a self-sufficient endeavour is simply because they're not tough enough!!

 

[baymule]

My Daddy worked with crews of men, hand digging irrigation canals with shovels when he was a young man. He was raised in the Rio Grande Valley. His father was a sharecropper and put him to work in the fields chopping cotton for fifty cents a day. We have it so easy.

 

[Britesea]

I dunno if that's always true. I know people who work 80-100 hours a week at 3 jobs just to make ends meet. They don't have time for any hobbies or spending time with their loved ones. Then there's the families where both parents work, and only see their children on weekends. For the first 6-7 years of our married life, I worked days with Sat/Sun off while he worked late swing with Tues/Wed off. We got 4 half-days a week to see each other; the other days, we waved at each other when we passed on the road. Hard physical labor or hours away at a city job, which is better? I know what my answer is, and that's why we chose a lower income lifestyle.

 

[CrealCritter]

I think I may be the opposite... I get depressed when I don't have anything to do. The more irons I got in the fire the happier I am.

What's that old saying... "Idle time is devil's time" holds true for me. I get in enough trouble all by myself, I don't need the devil giving me any more ideas... If I'm not running around like a one legged man in a ass kicking contest - then I'm simply not happy.

Look at it this way dude... Your needed and that's a good thing! Nothing good ever becomes reality unless you work for it. Now go and take some vitamin D and get on it