Self reliance is a life style, and many other things as well, here are 5 traits I have listed people share.

One of my Grandson's left for Michigan State University yesterday to complete his education which is a music major, he plays the guitar much better than I do. He and I did some mechanical work to his 1995 Mitsubishi pickup after his mom gave it to him in June, it runs great, until. He called from some where in Utah, (Green River valley?), he could not shift, he fixed it with my guidance and his skills, he is now at his aunt's house in Denver. He is becoming "self reliant", learning new skills and gaining abilities that not everyone knows, I began thinking about what being "self reliant" really means, I will attempt to do it justice with this blog.

We all know this guy.

  1)  Taking responsibility for our actions, reap the rewards as well as admitting to others as to what went wrong, and what I could have done to have changed the outcome. We can live and work any where we want, the only people not making mistakes or putting their foot in their mouths are the ones not doing anything. We must expect to make mistakes and to say the wrong things, when we do use real apologies instead of the canned version of "if I happened to have offended someone," if you think you did there is no "if".
  There are plenty of sayings related to taking responsibility, my mom would say two things that stick in my mind "you made the bed now lay in it," I think most of us heard that growing up, and "Blessed is he who helps himself." the basis of being self reliant. Plan your own activities, take credit or blame as fitted for what we have done, check what is your responsibility and repair as needed, I was working in the boat today and noticed an inflatable life vest was inflated, the usual suspects come to mind, one of the three grandson's that have been helping me over the past few weeks. When they all return I will ask for someone to take responsibility, only because it was discharged and tossed on the deck, deflated and unfolded some one is going to fold it up. More important is to accept responsibility for it, it's not a big deal, it is however something to deal with. He is 20 years old, he should have folded it back up and said "hey grandpa I blew up the life vest and I don't know what to do next." I would have laughed and showed him. Now it's got to be a "don't leave anything broken laying around for the next guy to deal with." Talk, that is how we learn.

  2)  Never stop learning if you don't have a high level of curiosity, create it, become curious thereby developing passion, it will contribute to your self care ideas and survival prepping. Curiosity covers the who, what, where, why and when of things, it reaches into scientific analysis or spiritual insight. Curiosity creates a mindset of constant wonder and marvel, I wonder why we don't have alligators in California, where have the birds gone? Curiosity creates learning, it demands a person to learn, gathers interest and creates the desire to become engaged in projects. I met a big man, I mean this guy was big, 6"8" would not be an exaggeration, weighing probably 300 pounds, the only man I have ever met who was bigger was Andrea the Giant, (that's another blog). The big man had in his hand a walking cane, I use two canes, we are both 67 years old and walking impaired. He showed me his cane, it was a unique cane that was bent in a unusual way. I told him "I like this cane, I am going to see if I can make one." Since then I have made three, not perfect, my bending of wood is a challenge due to not knowing how it is done. I researched and I am now making a steam chest from "stuff" I have laying around and some reclaimable materials my neighbors gave to me. I am not completed yet, I will be tomorrow, I made a goal of making a You tube video of the construction of the box, then I will make a video of making a cane. Which lead to my creating a YouTube channel and the planning of 4 other projects I will be video taping. That is how curiosity created learning works. When a child asks a question it is at that time the learning door opens, take advantage of it, go ahead talk about

Learning is a lot of fun, just ask anyone
not this guy though.

Napoleon Bonaparte with them, it won't hurt. One such conversation inspired me to read extensively about him, then my grandson and I had a really good conversation. Ignorance puts us at the mercy of others, read, write, experiment and think.

  3)  Set some goals, I tell people that I am a "uni-tasker", I have never been able to work on more than one project at a time. It's not for everyone, my wife thinks of it as a "disability", she is an insufferable "multi-tasker", her battle cry is "I'm going to get organized!". My battle cry is more of a whimper in comparison "I'm doing this today, that tomorrow and that over there after that, yes I'm a uni-tasker. Set the goals high, a mistake I made when I was young, making goals that were easy to attain. We should set goals one step beyond what we think is attainable for our skills, that will create a learning environment, creating passion to finish the task at hand. A lot of people write their goals down, some (as my wife does) places a photo of the goal somewhere she see's it as one of the first things in the morning. I'm on the other end of the spectrum, I don't write it down, use pictures or any motivation other than commitment to memory. We are each capable of creating goals that we can create passion for, in bird books at the back is a check off list of which birds are sighted, some make that a goal. Think for ourselves, "believe non of what you read and half of what you read," another sing song I heard constantly growing up, think for yourself my parents told me. When questions such as "that can't possibly be so," or "there must be more to the story." The questions scream out "find out what's going on," read all you can about the subject at hand, make that a goal, I will not settle for things to be explained to me, I want to discover for myself. If I fail, I want to fail on my own terms. Tips on goal setting.

  4)  If you live on a homestead, a farm, in the wilderness or a suburban setting being self reliant is a life style. It's a constant learning experience, as well as the routine every day mundane task it takes to make life worth living. Self reliance is about us making decisions and learning tasks and skills that apply to the world as we see it, not everyone raises goats or chickens, a standby hand water well pump is not very common, repairing irreparable items is part of it as well as inventing ways to accomplish new tasks Being self reliant is about being prepared for whatever we may encounter, it means having a family emergency plan, a natural disaster kit available in the home, emergency tools and other emergency preparedness we need to make. It means to me to exhibit compassion to my fellow humans, to be overly prepared for a disaster up to the point of having enough to share with my neighbors who are unprepared.

  5)  Learning of skills, carpentry, farming, and mechanics as well as others, I am not a believer in a complete collapse of society, however I am a believer in a temporary complete collapse. By that I mean the lose of utilities, transportation and a shortage of food, I believe it will happen. Due to many potential causes, civil unrest, depression (again), natural disasters or other incidents that may cause us to stay where we are for extended periods.
  One important skill is to meet your neighbors, it's easier to get to know them now versus in the middle of an event that is unfolding. When we are isolated we will have to depend on each other, it doesn't matter what our opinion of them is now, at some point we will have to band together. First skill, learn to get along with people, it will pay off.
  Each of us possess skills that are indispensable and teachable, the more we know the more effective we will be when a disaster strikes.

Everyone knows how to do something.

  To summarize, self reliance is to have faith in yourself, confidence in the abilities you have, we are honest with ourselves and others, we are trustworthy, we rely on ourselves first try everything first then get help, we make our own decisions, we are able to make decisions and act on them. Self reliance is a personnel journey, it does not set a person apart from others or cause aloofness, it is created from the heart and brain integrated into our lives in a slow steady pace. As a matter of fact many people wonder what the big deal with self reliance is all about, normally exclaiming "what's so new about this stuff, I've always done these things." Most of us are more self dependent than we realize.
  Thank you for reading, there is a lot more to this subject, I hope there is inspiration in this blog for you. Thanks leave a comment or suggestion and share this blog.

jacquesandkate  emergencykitsplus.com