Why Self-Sufficiency Is An Imperative Of Our Age
You settle back into the timber rocking chair on your long and breezy front porch to take in the scene. Before you and in different directions all around are neat rows of vegetables, fruit trees, and berry bushes…
Your hens are clucking contentedly in their coop, and the quiet bubbling of the stream just off to the side of your house is calming and peaceful. The fragrance of the blossoming fruit trees wafts across the porch with the afternoon breeze…
It’s been a full day, and you’re tired… but what a tired…
You’ll sleep well tonight, with no boss except Mother Nature to keep you up, nobody to answer to, no decision more stressful than whether to plant the new bed you’ve been cultivating tomorrow afternoon… or to sit on the porch with the neighborhood kids and shell peas while watching the game.
The troubles of the world and of our age are far away. Stock market ups and downs, recession, the job scene… the elections, politics… questions and concerns about safety and security… you are impervious to any friction in the world outside your homestead.
You are protected. You and your family are safe and provided for… not only today but for the future, as well.
Instead of a painful commute into the city, you walk down your back steps every morning to survey your own piece of land where everything you need you’re able to provide for yourself—food, water, shelter, and even an income.
With each passing season, your lifestyle becomes more resilient, more self-sufficient, more satisfying, and more secure.
The scene I’ve just described is not a dream but my current reality. This is the life I’m living right now.
On my property, I produce everything I need to provide for myself and my family. I’m even able to earn professional wages from my home while I care for my adorable but hyperactive 3-year-old daughter.
She likes digging and picking fruit, both of which give me great pride as her father… though someday I hope to convince her not to dig out my tomato plants and not to pick the unripe peppers and eat them by the double-handful.
At the end of each afternoon in this little self-sufficient paradise I’ve created for myself and my family, I look forward to my next decision, one of the most important of the day: Do I want a glass of the home-brew or the sun-tea? And will I enjoy it in the hammock or the chaise lounge…
While I celebrate the end of another day, I contemplate what home-grown meal I’ll enjoy for supper.
I am not exaggerating at all when I say that, at the end of each day, I feel so alive, so proud, and so genuinely happy and secure in the decision I made to undertake this self-sufficient lifestyle.
Embracing this lifestyle requires no special training or education. With some smart planning and innovative ideas, anyone can achieve the level of self-sufficiency I’m describing with a minimal amount of effort.
If you’ve ever had a taste for the resilient lifestyle, I’d say it’s time to act on that interest and begin to discover the joy and security of self-sufficient living. If this is your first time considering a step toward self-reliance, take heart. It is so much easier to realize this lifestyle today than it has been at any time in our history.
What does it mean to live a self-sufficient lifestyle?
Today self-sufficient living is not a euphemism for glorified camping. You can embrace a fully self-sufficient lifestyle today that also qualifies as comfortable or even—no kidding—luxury.
You can live in a big house… with a gourmet kitchen and as many bathrooms as you’d like. You can have a pool… air conditioning… and all conveniences and amenities of our age, from freezers and barbecues to hot tubs and high-speed Internet.
Why consider the idea in the first place?
Maybe you yearn for the idyllic peace and quiet of the countryside and yesteryear. Or maybe you desire the great satisfaction that comes from doing things for yourself and knowing your destiny is in your own hands.
Perhaps you have an unrealized desire to be able to walk into your pantry and see shelves fully stocked with the nutritious and delicious fruits of your own labor and to know deep down that whatever may come you’ll be okay.
Self-sufficient living isn’t Doomsday prepping, nor does it mean you have to scramble through the wilderness of northern Alaska hunting deer and avoiding packs of wolves and grizzly bears.
Furthermore, self-sufficiency should be designed to simplify your life… not complicate it… bringing an appreciation of the basics back to us so that we can learn to enjoy living again.
Self-sufficient living is living independently… meeting your real, physical, emotional, and financial needs yourself.
At one extreme are those who do everything for themselves, like the mountain men of early America. While admirable, this isn’t possible or interesting for most of us. At the other extreme of the lifestyle spectrum we might imagine a powdered aristocrat who does nothing at all for himself. Neither is this a possibility for most of us, and it really isn’t admirable either.
My Irish grandmother took great pride in everything on her table being the work of her family’s hands, except the salt, pepper, and sugar. Those were brought from far away, as were tea and coffee.
My grandmother’s family, at home on their farm on Ireland’s west coast, hadn’t made the dishes or the cutlery on their table either… although my granny did embroider her own tablecloths. And while they might’ve done their own butchering, baking, and candlestick-making, my Irish ancestors hired carpenters and blacksmiths for jobs they preferred not to do themselves.
My point is, this doesn’t have to be all or nothing. You decide how self-sufficient you want your life to be.
My grandparents lived this life out of necessity. Today, some might think… but we don’t have to live like that anymore! This is a new and very different world.
Every generation that leaves the farm for the city thinks that. But maybe we should know better… especially in these very uncertain times when rapid social changes are seemingly ripping apart economies and cultures all around the world.
Doesn’t it just make sense to be prepared for the worst… while, of course, hoping for the best?
I can’t think of anything that would make me feel better prepared physically and emotionally than a garden of my own bursting with fresh produce and a pantry well stocked for winter with healthy food I’ve grown myself. Or even just a box of heirloom seeds set aside that I could plant if I ever needed to…
Some level of self-sufficient preparedness just seems sensible in our world today. It can also be the source of tremendous self-satisfaction.
I spent years working in an office, and I take a lot of pleasure now when I lay my head down at night and I’m tired. Not because I had to shuffle a whining boss’s papers but because I had to get up early and harvest a load of fresh lettuce for local resorts, earning US$200 for less than an hour’s work. Sometimes that kind of tired is better than feeling refreshed.
Building and maintaining your self-sufficient lifestyle can be a full-time job if you’d like it to be. Or you could continue working at the job or in the career you’ve pursued your whole life. Regardless, living a more self-sufficient lifestyle can translate into reduced expenses.
The average U.S. household spent US$7,852 on food for the year in 2015. A large portion of this expenditure was on low-quality processed foods grown with chemical pesticides and fungicides, foodstuffs known to have direct links to some of the diseases that can cost thousands of dollars per year in medical expenses and lost income… diabetes, heart disease, obesity, asthma, and cancer, to name but a few.
With the correct information and a little getting-started help, it can be easy to replace a large portion of your food expenditure with home-grown, nutritious food grown in your own garden… meaning it’s practically free.
The average household spends US$1,320 per year on electricity… and some spend much more. Investing in a home power generation system—solar or wind—can cut your annual electricity expense in half. If you’re living outside the United States, in a country where electricity is more expensive than in the United States (this is true in most every country in the world), your savings will be even greater.
The more you embrace a self-sufficient lifestyle, the more money you can save.
If you’re just beginning to consider the options and opportunities for realizing the many benefits of a more self-sufficient lifestyle… or if you’ve been pursuing these strategies for years or even decades but are thinking that now you’re ready to take things to a next level… I would like to extend a special invitation to help.
Nov. 17–19 in San Ignacio, Belize, I will be hosting Live and Invest Overseas’ first-ever Self-Sufficiency Seminar. This will be a one-of-a-kind, three-day program that will include two full days of presentations, panel discussion, and Q&A on all aspects of self-sufficient living in our current age.
Day 3 will be given over to field trips. My team and I will take you on a tour of a mature and expansive organic farm… of fully functional (and also very comfortable and charming) self-sufficient homes… and of a custom-designed aquaponics system.
In addition, we’ll visit a local farmer’s market, where my self-sufficient colleagues will help you understand and appreciate the bounty before you… from the home-grown and organic produce to the handmade food specialties.
After these three days together in Cayo, you’ll be armed with everything you need to launch your own self-sufficient life… whatever form you’d like that to take.
Self-sufficient living comes with enormous upside… from a healthier, stress-free lifestyle to complete independence and control over your family’s future… from freedom, security, and peace of mind to a reduced cost of living and an opportunity for earning an income… from food and energy security to no utility bills… from a more balanced way of life to more time with your family…
However, in our current age, the self-sufficient agenda has become more urgent than it’s ever been. These are very uncertain times. Rapid social changes are creating tension, conflict, and worse around the world. I see the self-sufficient agenda as an imperative of our age.
The key to peace of mind and safety, security, and control over your future is a life that is not beholden or dependent on anyone but you… a self-sufficient life.
Turn on cable TV or read the news online, and you can feel as though the world has gone mad. Politics, the markets… terrorists, mass shootings… social unrest, not-so-peaceful protests…
For me the answer has been to take matters… life… living… my lifestyle… and my family’s future into my own hands. I have never been happier than I am right now living this self-sufficient life in Belize.How are we to survive it all?
Come, join me in Belize, and I’ll share the secrets and the benefits… the strategies and the technologies… the how-to and the know-how… the benefits and the great fun of living a self-sufficient life.
You don’t need to pursue your self-sufficient dreams in Belize, but this sure is an ideal place to develop and evolve them. Belize is blessed with abundant sunshine and water and rich, fertile earth… plus warm, welcoming, English-speaking people who share your commitment to independence and self-determination.
So meet me and my self-sufficiency pros in Belize in November to take the first steps toward your own self-sufficient life. You’ll spend one-on-one time with like-minded people, make connections, and start on your journey to being Self-Sufficient Together.
I very much look forward to meeting you in Belize in November and to sharing the delights and the upsides of the self-sufficient life.
Con Murphy
Belize Insider
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