I've listed five items of what I believe self-reliance entails, see if you agree with them

Sometimes things just don't go good, this past few days have been rough, nothing serious, I compare it to trying to push a wet spaghetti noodle across a dry surface. It started when I took a video of an Owl, well I failed to identify it correctly, and I got called out by my good friend next door. Well, she texted my wife and told her "it's a great horned owl, not a Barn Owl." She's right, old nature boy was not on top of it, no excuses I fouled it up. It's not the worst thing that's ever happened but it's embarrassing, it's called bruised ego. I woke up at 3 am this morning planning to write my blog, I had a great idea which would never come to be a reality, in fact, I now forgot what the great idea was. That's minor stuff because when I began to work on my computer strange things started to happen, I'm sure everyone runs into the same thing. I must have opened something I shouldn't have, I usually work in Google Chrome, when I typed in a search inquiry it started downloading search engines. It took me 4 hours to get the thing back to normal. While my wife was arguing with Xfinity, a normal activity for her. I'm still stumbling over "glitches" but I'm pretty sure I can deal with it. Was it a full moon or something?

I was embarrassed, mostly it was a bruised ego.

    I wrote this blog a while back on August 18, 2017, it's about becoming "self-reliant", learning new skills and gaining abilities that not everyone knows, I began thinking about what being "self-reliant" really means, "self-awareness" goes hand in hand with "self-reliance" I don't delve deeply into it here, the comparison is on another blog written later. I do have 5 items that will describe it fairly well:


  1)  Taking responsibility for our actions is the first attitude, 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 anywhere we want, the only people not making mistakes or putting their foot in their mouths are the ones who are not doing anything. We must expect to make mistakes, and not say the wrong things when we attempt to use real apologies instead of the canned version of "if I happened to have offended someone," if you think you did offend someone 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 make sure you follow through, to the finish. I was working on the boat today and noticed an inflatable life vest was inflated and on the floor, 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 someone is going to fold it up and learn a new skill when he installs the CO2 cartridge. More important than that 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 shown him. Now it's got to be a "don't leave anything broken lying around for the next guy to deal with." Another of my mom's sayings, "That's how we learn."

OK, OK, I did it, back in 1953 for crying out loud!

  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-awareness and add to your survival preparations. 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 do not walk all that well. He showed me his cane, it was a unique cane that was bent in an 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 having the equipment. 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. It is completed, however, my idea for generating steam will cost a fortune, the project is on the skids until I can make come up with a better idea. I made a goal of making a Youtube 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 videotaping. 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 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. I did not make a video of the steam chest, but I did start a YouTube channel, it's amateurish, which drives me to do better.

  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, the 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 the 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 will see it the first thing 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 a commitment to memory. We are each capable of creating goals that we can create a passion for, in bird books at the back is a check off list of which birds are sighted, some make it a goal to see them all. We need to always think for ourselves, "believe none of what you read and half of what you see," another sing-song I heard constantly growing up, think for yourself my parents would tell 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. Self-reliance is not letting other people's beliefs become yours until after it is given serious thought and end up in complete agreement with it. Separate gossip from the facts, attempt to quantify everything with three different sources, but like the Owl, errors still occur.

Homestead. 

  4)  If you live on a homestead, a farm, in the wilderness or a suburban setting being self-reliant is a lifestyle. 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. 33% of us in the United States have disaster preparations established, we should be better at it, My recommendation is one week's supply of water, food, and communications. When an emergency event occurs we will be on our own for at least one to three days, first responders take a while to mobilize, we have to be self-reliant during that period of time, our survival will be on the line. There will be no help for a while, they will come, but not the first two days.

  5)  Learning new skills or sharpening old ones, carpentry, farming, and mechanics as well as tasks like sewing, 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 loss of utilities, transportation and a shortage of food, I believe it will happen to most of us at some time. 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. The most prevalent threat to me and the one with the most potential of death and the need for stocking up supplies is Pandemic, isolation and mandatory quarantine could be as long as one year.

  One of the most important skills 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. The first skill, learn to get along with people, it will pay off. When we "bad mouth" someone it takes power away from us and the victim gains the power you lost, be careful with that, it's called the "emotional bank account" (From Steven Covey's habits of successful people.)

  Each of us possesses 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 well, and some things not so well, self-awareness is the ability to tell the difference and be alright with it.

  To sum it up, self-reliance is to have faith in yourself, confidence in the abilities you have, to be honest with ourselves and others, always to be trustworthy, to rely on ourselves first and try everything we are able to first then get help, we make our own decisions, we are able to make decisions and act on them. Self-reliance is a personal 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 at 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, in stressful situations, it often comes out. We amaze ourselves sometimes with our abilities, and the things our children are capable of.

I am sure you all are like me during this past week, my mind is in flux, and it's hard to think about anything other than the recent mass murder in Florida. I am so very sad about it, somehow it has to stop happening, I don't have any answers. I have only one comment, "I am so sad." All of our little kids in danger, just going to school.

  Thank you for reading and sharing, confidence, integrity, trust, and never compromise the trust and faith people have in us. Respect for ourselves and others, it's like the old man told me "Respect is earned, it's not handed out like red, white, and blue ribbons on the fourth of July." I aim to earn yours.


jacquesandkate  emergencykitsplus.com