Whatt does self suffcient mean to you?

[MorelCabin]

My idea of self sufficiency is learning how to do things without having to rely on any form of the commercialized industry. It's living within your means, living simply, and being debt free. It's knowing how to grow or hunt your own food, and being willing to live without all the conveniences we have now if we had to. Its about eating more healthy and not falling prey to everything everyone tells us about 'living today' There is alot of garbage out there!

 

[Beekissed]

Amen to that, sister!

 

[Quail_Antwerp]

Mine is the ability to grow my own food, to be able to produce as much if not all of my needs from home. To not have to fit the publics mold of what a person's life should be.

 

[RTRChick]

I was raised to believe self sufficient means being able to provide your needs yourself. My family never stressed if the lights went out, or when the hot water broke and dad couldn't fix it for a few weeks. We raised our cattle for meat, went in with a neighbor for pork, bought chickens and eggs from neighbors. The cable got cut off several times when I was growing up, mostly because dad didnt like all the junk on it. I think just about everyone in my family has had a garden every year, and all the kids were expected to help out in it. And you didnt go to the doctor unless you were REALLY sick.That doesn't mean we never enjoyed conviences, I was just raised to know where food comes from and that not having hot water is not the end of the world.

I don't want to be self sufficient because it is a trend. I want to because I see how much better it would be for the environment if we were all that way. And luckily for me, my DH agrees. And well a little bit of it has to do with the fact that I want to rebel from what society tells me I should be doing, and that I remember how peaceful country life was.

 

[ScottyG]

To me, it's about doing what's best for my family, which usually means either doing things myself, or supporting good local businesses that do things well and with a personal touch. I'm not an old-fashioned guy in general, but I think so many things in our world these days have been changed to be inexpensive and disposable, instead of focusing on quality.

I know I can't do everything I want to in the self-sufficiency category... I don't have any land to farm or garden, and I'm not sure that right now in my life I'd even have time to do so if I had the land. But I strive to do things myself if I can, because life's not about getting as much done as possible, but about enjoying as much of your time as possible. If I get more things done, but don't enjoy any of them, then I've failed.

As Kurt Vonnegut said in an essay I particularly enjoy, "How beautiful it is to get up and go out and do something. We are here on earth to f*rt around. Don't let anybody tell you different."

edited to add: (really? I can't say a simple word that means flatulence here? Weeeeird.)

 

[sweetcorn]

Being self sufficient to me is knowing you 'd be okay if there was no wallyworld or the power went out. You'd still eat , be warm , have lights , be able to care for family , etc and have the skills to do it on your own if you had to.

 

[unclejoe]

Being able to keep going with only minor inconveniences in our life in the event that our technological society takes a nose dive. It wouldn't take us too long to make the adjustment from cell phone to "Little House on the Prairie". Although I'd rather not, we could get by much the same way people did in the 19th century.

 

[dacjohns]

I take things pretty literally sometimes. I told a person one time that I had never experienced freedom. He said he felt sorry for me. I was thinking about thinks like freedom from worry. He was thinking about freedom on a different plane.

To me self sufficiency is like freedom. To be totally self sufficient is to not need anything you couldn't make or produce yourself within the limits of where you lived. True self sufficient living is hard to do.

A more practical meaning is living within your means, making do with what you have, producing as much as possible and practical, decreasing your dependency on others.

There are some things you really do need for a self sufficient life style but until you obtain then you are dependant on others. How many people have access to a salt supply? How many can grow enough grain and harvest that grain to provide for themselves? Can you actually live healthily as a hunter-gatherer? Can you make your own clothes out of natural and native materials? When you build your house from logs cut on your own land where did the tools to cut the trees come from?

So to me self sufficiency is a continuum with total self sufficiency on one end and total dependency on the other. My goal is to be as close to the self sufficient end as possible and practical.