Doing No Harm

I read around a half dozen prepper blog sites every day and during the week I catch up on a little over a dozen regularly. Each offers something for me or I wouldn’t read them. Sometimes it only makes me think a little. Everyone has their own motivation for reading the blogs. Sometimes two separate postings will mesh to really make my mind work. Such is the case of a couple of recent postings by Commander Zero and Natog.

Notes from the Bunker is Commander Zero’s site. CZ asked the question about “what if…” you had all your supplies, and the world never went to hell? Thirty or forty or more years from now you can buy all the food, gas, and ammunition you want. In other words, the whole prepping thing turns out to be a bust.

Natog over at TEOTWAWKIAIFF also wrote a post about the dualaility (sp?) of prepping for the future and living in the here and now. Natog preps for the bad things he thinks are headed this way, but also has to keep up current training and certifications for his job to maintain his income. Frankly, that is a valid concern and something that needs to be addressed. Face it; your personnel survival is dependent on a steady income.

Being that I have gray hair and am long in the tooth as it were this is not the first time this subject has come up. I can not remember if it was Howard Ruff or Harry Browne that first wrote about it, and I am not going to dig through my old stuff to look it up to be sure, but back in the 1970s the answer was simple. If nothing happens then you go ahead and drink your stored water, eat the food and use the supplies. Think of the money you will save by not buying food for a year or so.

I know there are those that think only yuppies can prep correctly and there is a camp that figures anyone that has two silver rounds to rub together is an upper crust survivalist. The truth is that most of the preppers I know get up every day and go to work and hope to make enough money every week to stay ahead on the bills and add to the supplies so that if TS does indeed HTF they can protect their family. For them it is the same as making the car insurance payment or the house insurance or any of those other things we do to protect our family.

Like Natog I have to go through annual training to keep my job. Frankly, some of it is a pain in the ass. We live in the here and now. We work now, not in the future. We need to do those things that keep us employed and if that means taking a certification class or going to training then we do it. Losing your job is a personal SHTF situation as several preppers I know have experienced, Right MBitM?

My wife and I are approaching retirement. While we look forward to having more time to pursue things we have talked about for years we also have to balance that against the bills we need to cover each month and the items we will use up and we can not replace. There are no easy choices in prepping if you choose to do that as part of your lifestyle. All you can hope for is to make those choices that do no harm.

Wolverine