It is said that knowledge is power. An individual who is able to care for himself and his family without dependence on others is truly a free man.
There are times in our life where we make the stark realization that our lifestyle cannot no longer support us and we want to live a life based on freedom. Freedom to live without debt, freedom to live where we will flourish and the freedom to live the life we deserve. We want to begin taking steps toward living a more self reliant lifestyle, but changing our life to reflect this begins with small movements.
Self reliance comes in stages and the more we move toward this, we find that we do not need as much as we thought. We see that we imprisoned ourselves through debt, living paycheck to paycheck and living beyond our means.
Learning knew skills and applying them to your life will shift a person from dependent to independent. Acquiring these knowledge sources is as easy as finding a class around the community you live in that can teach these skills or going to the library or book store, finding an individual with first hand knowledge of the skill you are wanting to learn, or finding online courses. The bottom line is, if a person is ready to become more self reliant, they will find a way to achieve this.
Steps to Becoming Self Reliant
Step 1: Get out of debt.
- Create a debt repayment schedule and stick to it.
- Eliminate any frivolous spending.
- If another income is needed, look into starting a website where you can sell a product.
Step 2: Think about all the ways you depend on others and the community to get what you and your family need.
- Food (fresh and canned)
- Cooking and baking
- Cleaning supplies
- Medicine
- Security and protection
- Vehicles to drive to work.
- Car repairmen to fix the vehicle you drive.
Step 3: Learn and find a way to do these skills without the help from others.
- Try and grow your own food and medicinal herbs.
- Learn to make your own bread.
- Make your own cleaning supplies, and soap.
- Learn to preserve food.
- Take self defense classes.
- Use an alternative form of transportation (if possible) to get around town.
- Learn how to repair problems around the house.
- Repair your car on your own.
Step 4: Practice and experiment with the new skills you have acquired. The more you practice, the better your skills become. Practice makes perfect. You can’t be proficient at something without making mistakes. Making the mistakes now while there is still time to deal with the learning curve is far better than trying to figure these skills out when your under pressure.
These new found skills will not go unused. Especially during an economic hardship, skills can be bartered for other needs or goods. A person who has collected enough skills to consider themselves proficient, can teach others to become more self reliant on themselves. Those that teach these precious knowledge and skills to others will be like a diamond in the rough.
The path to self reliance is not an easy journey. It takes time and effort on your part to create a freedom-based life. It is also an investment of time and labor, and requires one to use their precious free time to learn skills needed to eliminate dependence.
Some believe that freedom and self empowerment are the end result of becoming self reliant. Whatever the reasoning is, these individuals have made a decision not to be helpless. They strive to learn and acquire knowledge in an attempt to be better individuals. The more a person begins to step away from a dependent lifestyle, the more self-assured and empowered they become.
Nice article.
This is a great point. Knowledge+Application=Self Reliance. If we as a society can become more self reliant, with nutrition and more aspects of life in general, I think we would see a massive change unlike we’ve ever seen before.
Rahim Samuel
Publisher, Wellnessbymanymeans.com
I agree. If more individuals came to recognize this and apply to their lives, their would be a massive movement towards change. Ever heard of the Hundredth Monkey Effect?
The hundredth-monkey effect is a supposed phenomenon in which a learned behavior spreads instantaneously from one group of monkeys to all related monkeys once a critical number is reached. By generalization it means the instantaneous, paranormal spreading of an idea or ability to the remainder of a population once a certain portion of that population has heard of the new idea or learned the new ability.
Just think of the effects that a movement of self reliance and personal responsibility would have on a society? Perhaps, that is what this country needs to get moving in the right direction.
I love this article. Thank you for posting. This subject has been on my mind for quite a long time and I too hope that practical self reliance catches on and sticks, and believe that it is essential for the health of our country.
I hope The Hundredth Monkey Effect does work.
Good article and great comment food for thought.
I think there’s evidence for the 100th monkey effect in human history. Take man’s ability to control fire, for instance. Research suggests that it spread across the global human population at right around the same time. Man went thousands of years without that skill, and initially only a handful of people had the ‘power.’ Eventually when enough people had seen it or heard of it, it spread and become rapidly accepted knowledge and application.
The self reliance movement is happening, and it is manifesting itself on a variety of fronts. If there’s one thing this economic crisis has done, is it has shown many people to be confident in their abilities to effect change in their lives and that of others. Our self reliance and a willingness to rely on local community (family, friends, local businesses) is a part of a greater movement that will also change the political and social atmosphere, and perhaps improve on it.
We may have already surpassed the 100th monkey! Only time will tell 🙂
Having been born prior to WWII, I guess that I am self reliant just by living through the depression and WWII. Now, although we have a modest income, we live pretty well because I do most of the home maintenance and repairs. It’s not that I want to, it just that we can’t afford to have professional gardeners or repair people, etc. More self reliance means better living.
Bud,
I couldn’t have said it better myself! I think that more people are trying to move back to self reliance so they can live a more quality life.