Re: famine O/T skills and choice=much healthier and happier

[Guest guest]

I think this is quite on topic for health awareness. There was

a little bit of humor on the rats and I do have the beans already

(thank you, good suggestion. Goes good with the stash of dried

corn). It doesn't make one a conspiracy cult member to be

thinking " What if it happened here? " or " What would we do if...? "

That was a good point on staying balanced. Fear sucks one's

energy away from you and that's a doorway to a host of illnesses and

a miserable life. I believe in positive thinking and positive

action: the two go hand in hand with each other giving one more

options to choose from.

When I was in junior high school I started seeing patterns of

action in the greater society that were obviously nonsustainable and

doomed to failure. 20 odd years later I still see most of the same

patterns and large groups of people frantically clutching at the

ledge as it crumbles beneath them. What's different for me now is a

set of skills and talents that have been developed that give a core

confidence in myself and the earth that sustains us and the spirit

that guides us. If a disaster strikes I have a plan and the means

to take action on it. An example of that is home health care: I do

not have health insurance nor do a lot of people in my social

circle. Do I worry about that? Isn't it horrible to be without

it? No, I learned (and continue to study) alternative health care

methods and use them in to keep myself healthier. If a loved one

gets sick we can frequently deal with it (and quickly identify those

things we can't, very important part) and thus I don't have to worry

about whether I have to keep my job for health insurance reasons.

I'm free from fear on that issue and that makes me free to choose

appropriate courses of action. That also frees me from dependency

on the status quo on this issue. It would be nice to have insurance

and hospitals are a great thing but I don't fear not having access

to them.

In a similiar manner, gas and oil prices skyrocketing in a

northern climate hurt the people real bad especially those with

fixed or lower income. As the price goes up quality of life here

goes down rapidly. Loose your heat in the winter and things get

real bad real fast. Several years ago the northeast got hit by a 4

day ice storm that took out powerlines, transmission towers, and

disrupted everything all over in some places for weeks. Living in a

trailer at the time with a oil furnace and no electricty put us in a

temporary survival situation. Were we worried? No, we sealed off

the kitchen from the rest of trailer, stayed in that room for the

most part conserving heat from the gas kitchen stove, drank lots of

hot tea, burned candles, and enjoyed the show nature was putting

on. We had at least a month's worth of food stored up and had the

gas run out before the power came back could have improvised a

different way to keep one room warm. It was a positive experience

for all of us and not a hardship. Skills and confidence allowed us

to choose to be happy rather than squatting in misery and fear

waiting for others to fix things.

So the more skills we have, the more choices are avaiable, and

the smoother life and it's transitions become. A person then has

much less stress and the accompying fear. That is an incredible

advantage for living a healthy life. It keeps boiling down to

choice time and time again.