Funny but this sort of awareness and "prepping" was common as I grew up and into adult life which is why we paid into pension schemes and worked to pay off mortgages while sometimes sticking to unpalatable jobs and waited to buy stuf. It was an amazing day when I walked into a sports shop and bought a kayak.
Prepping
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Funny but this sort of awareness and "prepping" was common as I grew up and into adult life which is why we paid into pension schemes and worked to pay off mortgages while sometimes sticking to unpalatable jobs and waited to buy stuf. It was an amazing day when I walked into a sports shop and bought a kayak.
And then the Pensions melted down... Endowment policies failed to deliver... Little things that can spoil that dream, I am Mortgage free which I worked to pay off rather than have a cheap mortgage fro another 10 plus years, I ended up paying 30 times what I needed to every month to clear it, all the best plans I had when I was 25 changed in 1990 when my second daughter was still-born at full term, which led to a marriage breakdown and loss of job...But as they say, when you are as low as you can be, there is only one way to go...Upwards, and that is what I had to do to get where I am today, with a good job, a second marriage, another wonderful daughter...
Our grand-parents didn't "prep", they weren't "Green" either...But we can learn a lot from them to prep for our futures.
Our grand-parents didn't "prep", they weren't "Green" either...But we can learn a lot from them to prep for our futures.
Not if prepping is your contentment (like most old farmers I've known) And disasters are always exciting.
Good post - some people would think making "dens in the woods" or fire by "rubbing two sticks together" is pretty pointless - after all why acquire skills and equipment that have no practical application and are not needed?
I say - if you enjoy an activity, and can afford it, its not for me to criticise another persons life choices
Despite all the (better than I would like to admit) posts I can't help but still have a pathological dislike for the word "prepping". I can get pretty pedantic (by other's views and a stickler for accuracy by my own) about using the right word because I think a sign should point to the destination clearly.
I don't consider a Prepper and a Survivalist to the the same thing. I would have thought that Preppers Prep and Survivalists Survive. And that "Self Reliant-ists" Rely on themselves.
There's preparation.
There's doing.
There's preparation and doing.
There's prepration and doing and radiating life.
You don't see people talking about Beckham being a Football Prepper because he does a lot of training, he's a footballer.
Life consists of preparation, doing and radiating (and many other aspects). So to me saying I'm a prepper is a bit like saying "I'm an In Breather". I think the word prepper shows a fundamental confusion and I think there is more to that than me being pedantic and I think the OP shows this.
What percentage of people start prepping that way? Have you ever seen someone say
On the other hand is it easier to imagine someone congruently saying
I would imagine that "Bushcraft", "Primitive Skills", "Wilderness Skills", "Organic Farming", "Living Sustainably" are more often slotted into the third sentence than the first.
You can be able to fix the washing machine because
You are prepping for the time when no-one can fix it for you
You take pride in being self reliant
You have a child-like no reason needed curiosity about the world around you and how things work
which one of these has the most life in it?
Lofty repeatedly emphasises the importance of the will to live.
Thats the will to live. Not the will to survive or the will to prep
[video=youtube;vJjEwhlsDws]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJjEwhlsDws[/video]
I don't consider a Prepper and a Survivalist to the the same thing. I would have thought that Preppers Prep and Survivalists Survive. And that "Self Reliant-ists" Rely on themselves.
There's preparation.
There's doing.
There's preparation and doing.
There's prepration and doing and radiating life.
You don't see people talking about Beckham being a Football Prepper because he does a lot of training, he's a footballer.
Life consists of preparation, doing and radiating (and many other aspects). So to me saying I'm a prepper is a bit like saying "I'm an In Breather". I think the word prepper shows a fundamental confusion and I think there is more to that than me being pedantic and I think the OP shows this.
What percentage of people start prepping that way? Have you ever seen someone say
On the other hand is it easier to imagine someone congruently saying
I would imagine that "Bushcraft", "Primitive Skills", "Wilderness Skills", "Organic Farming", "Living Sustainably" are more often slotted into the third sentence than the first.
You can be able to fix the washing machine because
You are prepping for the time when no-one can fix it for you
You take pride in being self reliant
You have a child-like no reason needed curiosity about the world around you and how things work
which one of these has the most life in it?
Lofty repeatedly emphasises the importance of the will to live.
Thats the will to live. Not the will to survive or the will to prep
[video=youtube;vJjEwhlsDws]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vJjEwhlsDws[/video]
So, prepping for those times when the washing machine needs fixing is called?
If you don't prepare yourself for those future events then you won't be able to do it, you will just muddle along and might end up using a rock on the river bank to do your washing.
It is after all just another label, so don't worry about what the label says, just do things to be less of a burden to those around you, and you never know those things you do might just help others instead of you needing the help.
If you don't prepare yourself for those future events then you won't be able to do it, you will just muddle along and might end up using a rock on the river bank to do your washing.
It is after all just another label, so don't worry about what the label says, just do things to be less of a burden to those around you, and you never know those things you do might just help others instead of you needing the help.
I honestly don't mind planning for survival, even if that means that in the process I fail to live. I am a worrier and do believe that a major disaster is coming. The way I see it, if I spend a few days a week learning new things that most people don't even think about (like BR said about rubbing sticks together and foraging) and making things that will benefit us if needed, I am enjoying myself while at the same time I am covering a few aspects of survival in a disaster. My family however don't even think about it and I don't mind. They are living now, while I am doing my best to make sure that they will continue to do so in the event that I am right.
As a typical bloke who wants to provide for and protect his family for every eventuality, I honestly can't understand why everybody isn't doing this. Surely it is more important to us to protect our loved ones than to just go on happily hoping that nothing is going to happen. People take out life insurance, house insurance, travel insurance, all sorts "just in case". But what good would that insurance be if the money became worthless, or government collapsed during a civil war? OK, some of you are probably thinking that none of those would ever happen. But what if?
As a typical bloke who wants to provide for and protect his family for every eventuality, I honestly can't understand why everybody isn't doing this. Surely it is more important to us to protect our loved ones than to just go on happily hoping that nothing is going to happen. People take out life insurance, house insurance, travel insurance, all sorts "just in case". But what good would that insurance be if the money became worthless, or government collapsed during a civil war? OK, some of you are probably thinking that none of those would ever happen. But what if?
Useful bit there Marco1981
Who knows, this book was pointed out to me...
Besieged by Barbara Demick
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Besieged-Li...=UTF8&qid=1373721344&sr=1-1&keywords=besieged
No, it couldn't happen in the UK, surely not...
Who knows, this book was pointed out to me...
Besieged by Barbara Demick
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Besieged-Li...=UTF8&qid=1373721344&sr=1-1&keywords=besieged
No, it couldn't happen in the UK, surely not...
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I hear you. I never gave a thought to prepping until I got married and God blessed us with a baby daughter! Then it started! I wouldn't call myself a prepper, and I think it's unlikely that something big will happen in my lifetime in the UK. But if it did, I think it would hit us unbelievably hard because most of us are so dependant. I flick a switch for warmth & turn a tap for fresh water. I don't have a clue how the gas or water gets to my house.
I wanted to have the basics sorted to provide for my family if we had to fend for ourselves for a while. We've got maybe a month's worth of food (cheap rice & oats) stored (preparing more for a short term disaster, but it would definitely take the edge off a long term collapse too) & water is sorted with rainwater & a nearby spring. I'll be installing a log burner this year too
I've enjoyed prepping or whatever people want to call it... Plus, I've bought myself some leather underwear. It worked for the Great Humongous in Mad Max 2.As I have been trying to point to, that is going to depend a very great deal on where you approach it FROM mentally.
If you approach it with no thought i.e. no reason (e.g. as a kid watching Dad do it) then it is just called Life.
If you approach it with curiosity it is called Fun or Learning.
If you approach it with lots of reasons and/or "shoulds" it is called Worrying.
As I have also been trying to point to..... preparation is in everything we do, it comes naturally when you look at things as they are, outside the tropics. Food stores and Winter go hand in hand.
But if the preparation is contaminated by Worry or Fear, then it becomes quite unnatural because we are carrying quite a heavy load of (mental) stuff we don't need. You will "should" all over yourself.
Also if we have those tendencies then it seems likely that in a situation they will come up those tendencies will arise and a lot of the preparation will go down the pan. They are better dealt with from the beginning by approaching it with the right mindset.
If you are prepping in order to calm your thinking down, then you have got it all the wrong way round,
because you will be entirely dependent on things outside you to maintain a calm state of mind and a clear head. You will have outsourced your state of mind to a set of preparations (kit, procedures, people, whatever).
Believing your preparations will give you peace of mind or "save" you isn't that different to believing faeries will save you. You will hit a situation you didn't expect/prepare for and your one asset will be the ability to think clearly. If you don't have that, you are done for.
That's why I think fear is a bad reason to start prepping. But it appears to me to be only one people use (which I may be mistaken about).
That said starting through fear is better than not starting, but the highest order of business would be getting your mind clear so that circumstances follow, not getting your circumstances clear in the hope that the mind follows. Though I do say priority. There is nothing to stop you working from both ends at once.
The bottom line is we all prepare, the difference between us is the extent to which we outsource that preparation to Supermarkets, Utility Companies etc and the extent to which we take responsibility for that choice to outsource or not.
I don't call that "being a Prepper" I call it "being an Adult" or "being a Human Being".
So we shouldn't think "what if", we should think "that's life"...
Where have I said that?
I haven't said that at all.
You keeping missing what I am saying and coming back as though I am saying something else. Maybe I am being overlong and it's getting lost.
Short version.
Fear is a bad place to do Survival and "what ifs" from. It's contaminated. You need to do a S.T.O.P.A. on that and then do your survival.
For example....
If you want to teach the kids how to get out of the house in 5 mins with the gear they need for x hours are they going to learn more and be more resilient from
A serious TEOTWAKI scenario from the Prepper checklist?
or
Or playing SAS Survival Scooby Doo Top Gear and having a "challenge" arrive, that is TEOTWAKI but so cartoonish it makes them laugh?
If you want to teach the kids how to get out of the house in 5 mins with the gear they need for x hours are they going to learn more and be more resilient from
A serious TEOTWAKI scenario from the Prepper checklist?
or
Or playing SAS Survival Scooby Doo Top Gear and having a "challenge" arrive, that is TEOTWAKI but so cartoonish it makes them laugh?
There are not many real incidents when you only have minutes to leave the home, fire, gas leaks etc and if that type of thing happens then you just leg it (you will of course have 'backed up' all your needed documents etc away from home).
On another forum someone who had been in Sarajevo pointed out something I hadn't considered. It was thought best to keep loaded weapons handy in every room of a front-line house in case of assault as a personal weapon might be put down and left in another room but there would always be one available with this system. Practical prepping for civil war.
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