SSDreamin
Almost Self-Reliant
I do not wish for TSHTF, secretly or otherwise. That is DH's biggest fear right now, but not mine. I feel, personally, we will slide slowly down, as a country, into another, protracted depression. This fear of reliving the horror stories my grandparents used to tell me, possibly magnified by who knows how much, drives me to return to the life I had as a child. There was very little that our homestead did not provide us but, what little it didn't, my Dad bartered for. I grew up thinking everybody who could gathered their own eggs, milked their own cows, sewed their own clothes, worked their land to their benefit and canned their bounty. I assumed, as a child might, that all the stuff at the grocery store was just the extras from farms like ours, packaged up fancy so they people who lived in the city would like them. I don't remember much change at all (in routine) during the times we'd lose power for whatever reason, other than switching from the stove to the woodstove and having to use the outhouse more often. I liked the feeling living there gave me and I want that for my DS. If I do have a secret in my heart, it's that, if it is fear that has driven me to this change in my families life, I am secretly grateful for it. I sat on my porch the other night, smelling the intermingling of cow and the fresh cut grass that my neighbor calls ' the hay field' and felt contentment in my soul. I may wish for a return to common sense: In gov't, in people and in corporations. I would never wish for a complete collapse of our system. As has already been pointed out, it would be horrible, no matter how much you were prepared it probably wouldn't be enough and it would definitely suck!
As for the rich/poor part of the post, I struggle with that. It's all a perception thing after all, isn't it? By many people's standards, DH and I are rich. By many people's standards, we aren't. Most of the priorities of our friends and family are not the same as ours, but it wasn't that long ago that ours fell right in line with theirs. We are still paying off the remnants of our old priorities. I worry for them, although I realize they have to make their own choices and live with them. If TSHTF, I know it will be much harder for them to adjust and try to come to grips with the fact that many of them will be UNABLE to make the adjustment, but I can't force them to change any more than they can force me to close my eyes and go back to our old life.
I had a babysitter who liked to say "If the rich man is not happy in his heart, he is worse off than the beggar in the street". She was 'poor' by most people's standards but often said she had just what she needed "and not a drop more" and was happy in her soul. I hope I can reach that point some day.
As for the rich/poor part of the post, I struggle with that. It's all a perception thing after all, isn't it? By many people's standards, DH and I are rich. By many people's standards, we aren't. Most of the priorities of our friends and family are not the same as ours, but it wasn't that long ago that ours fell right in line with theirs. We are still paying off the remnants of our old priorities. I worry for them, although I realize they have to make their own choices and live with them. If TSHTF, I know it will be much harder for them to adjust and try to come to grips with the fact that many of them will be UNABLE to make the adjustment, but I can't force them to change any more than they can force me to close my eyes and go back to our old life.
I had a babysitter who liked to say "If the rich man is not happy in his heart, he is worse off than the beggar in the street". She was 'poor' by most people's standards but often said she had just what she needed "and not a drop more" and was happy in her soul. I hope I can reach that point some day.
to anyone who thinks I am.
Does it make me any better than anybody else, definitely NOT!
