usually portrayed as radical idealists who have lost touch with reality, and could be dangerous.

At the best they’re used by the media simply to sell their shows because of shock value. Man vs Wild and Survivorman come to mind. Eating maggots and sleeping inside camel carcasses is sure to get ratings right?

The last time I saw a show about families that were into the survivalist lifestyle it featured 4 or 5 families living their lives. It did nothing more than make you think that these people are nuts. One scene had a father dressing up his 5 year old son in riot gear with a timer on, screaming at him that he only had a certain amount of time until he could put his gas mask on. It was all very intense watching that. Imagine what it was like for his son. I would say that these people are taking things a bit far as well. But that’s what the media wants, shock value.

Try to get rid of the idea in your mind that if you take steps for being self reliant and prepared for uncertain times, then you’ll be labeled as a wack job. You can still be totally normal AND prepared at the same time.

Being Prepared Is A Good Thing

We’re taught from an early age to be prepared financially in the form of saving for “the golden years.” We’re taught to prepare for college by getting good grades in high school. We’re taught to prepare ourselves for which career we want to enter into. They teach you on planes to prepare for an emergency crash landing. We’re taught we should know CPR in case somebody around us has a heart attack or starts choking. We wear seatbelts to prepare ourselves for a car crash. We’re taught to prepare for the afterlife by our religion. When I was a kid they had us hide under our desks in case the Russians dropped nuclear bombs on us (how ridiculous right?). We would have fire drills and earthquake drills just in case.

We’re taught to prepare for all of these things in life but when it comes to being able to survive an attack, natural disaster or a political & econmic colapse, then we’re the crazy ones. Go figure.

Why is that?

I’m guessing it’s the media. Either the media wants survivalists to look like cooks so they can get more viewers to sell more ads or there are real people out there who don’t want you to be self reliant because then they can control you by forcing you to rely on them for your life. Squirrels, animals and insects “put by” food for the winter. Native American indians and all tribal cultures store up food for the winter. Why is it so weird that we do something similar?

You can start making small changes and prepare your family for the worst. Plan for the worst and expect the best. What good is your money going to do you, if the banks are shut down or there is a natural disaster and martial law is declared? You can’t eat your worthless paper dollars and even if you could get to the grocery stores you might not be able to stock up. Typically grocery stores only keep about 3 days worth of food on hand.

I’m not saying you need to move out to the middle of the country and build a bunker below your house so you can live through some kind of war. But what if the power grid when down where you lived for 2 weeks? What if there were a 9.4 earthquake that turned your neighborhood into rubble? What if you had some kind of hurricane or tornado that forced you to need to rely on survival supples?

What would you do?

We prepare for things in just about all areas of our life why not with our living situations? Instead of relying on your neighbors whom you rarely even see, for a flashlight or some water during a crisis, what if everybody was prepared? You could share supplies with your neighbors out of abundance and actually get through a difficult situation with relative ease.

How & Where To Start

It’s relatively simple. Start buying a few extra things each time you go to the store. You could buy a couple boxes and put them in the garage and fill them with food, emergency supplies, like bandaids, water, hydrogen peroxide and blankets.

As you progress and learn more you can add to the boxes. You could learn more about natural antibiotics like honey, dried herbs, superfoods and more. But before you start going crazy with trying to take things to level 10 start with level 1. Just buy a few extra things at the grocery store next time and put them aside just in case you ever need them.

Eventually you’ll want to keep adding to your knowledge arsenal. People buy guns, install rain gutters on the roofs of their house and so much more. Don’t worry about all that when first starting out. Just start to do something, anything. Go buy a solar generator, or some extra batteries and a flashlight. Just get the ball rolling.

I highly suggest the two resources on this page. Daniel Vitalis is excellent as well as Ed Corcoran. They are my “go to” guys for learning more about how to be more prepared.

Conclusion

Start somewhere by buying a few extra things every time you go to the store. Let them add up and put them somewhere safe in your house.

Remember you don’t have to be crazy about doing all this stuff. Just being a little bit prepared will help you, your family and your neighbors deal with a situation should it ever occur.

Then you’ll be smiling inside remembering how people made fun of you for having some emergency supplies put aside.

Who’s laughing now? 😉

Watch the video below to learn more.

You can learn more about Ed Corcoran and how to be more prepared here. >>