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Don’t Be Too Cool For School

SurvivalBlog readers, at least on the greater web, believe it or not, have a reputation as being amongst the more educated and affluent members of the preparedness community. Take that for what you will, but up until quite recently I had relied on a work ethic, intelligence, and blessings to continue to secure my rise in my chosen field. I had left college some eight years ago after being stuck in the “somewhere in my senior year” quagmire for what seemed like forever, after deciding that I had plenty of opportunity in my chosen field without it. Fast forward to last winter, and I had basically hit a plateau in my field. I’m blessed, don’t get me wrong, but I was also stuck. The position I really wanted to move into in my company required a degree in Business Administration, which was my prior major. Experience was not considered in lieu of the degree, therefore one might as well not even look at the posted position without one. So, I went to speak with the admissions department of a relatively well known midwestern university not too far away to ask about what it would take to transfer and finish my degree. What a surprise! I was only six classes away (conveniently the minimum number of courses that the university requires you to take there for them to confer their degree upon you. I did the math, and I thought, “That’s only a year to finish. I can do that!”

So I applied for and received my companies’ tuition reimbursement program and worked towards finishing this up. Well, the big wigs showed up at my regional job site for the yearly dog and pony show, and one of the Senior VP’s recognized me. (I had worked for a year at Corporate Headquarters on the east coast before transferring to the midwest; again, that’s another article entirely.) The Senior VP is a very nice lady who remembered me, asked how I was doing, and how I liked my job. Figuring I had very little to lose, I told her how much I enjoyed my job and was grateful for their help transferring, but I also mentioned that my true career goal was in Acquisitions and that I was going to school to finish my degree to try and move into that department. She said all of the right things that you say to employees in that situation– “That’s great; let me know if I can help” and so forth. I really didn’t consider it much, until about a week later when I came into work and found an e-mail from her waiting for me, asking me when I would graduate. There was a position open in Acquisitions. It was not pressing, and she had thought of me. I told her my expected graduation date, and the conversation continued. I won’t bore you further with the details, but I was offered the job pending completion of my degree in August. I told that story so that I could tell this one. My wife and I dreamed for a long time of moving to the American Redoubt. Part of the negotiations for my accepting the position was…, wait for it, …the right to telecommute from anywhere in the country where high speed data connection exists. It is with the understanding that I am at the beckon call of my bosses to travel to Virginia or Los Angeles (our two coastal headquarters) at company expense. I can’t imagine a more perfect opportunity. My wife and I have our first planned visit to northern Idaho/western Montana in two weeks to look for property. We’re looking for a minimum of ten acres, and seclusion comes right after the availability of satellite Internet on the “list of wants and needs”.

So, when you can gain some knowledge and complete some sort of schooling relevant to your field (especially if your company participates in any sort of tuition reimbursement program, as many do nowadays), take advantage of it. You never know where the opportunity might take you in your preparedness efforts. While it’s true that I would’ve preferred to take some welding courses instead of Corporate Law, welding would not have likely gotten me my ticket to the relocation my wife and I had been praying for.

Get Out of Town

I’m willing to bet that if you’re reading this, there is a great chance that you currently don’t live where you really want to live. It’s true for me, and there is no shame in it. However, there is something you need to ponder upon, and it is this; if you are reading this blog regularly and preparing to the best of your abilities, you do not think like the rest of society at large. I think most of us can agree that is a good thing. If you do not think like the rest of society, the sad fact is that you don’t belong. You don’t fit in there, and you shouldn’t want to. The good news is that there are a lot of folks who don’t belong, and they are clustering, not just inside the American Redoubt but in the rural areas all over our great nation. If you are in an urban setting and see the writing on the wall, my friend, it is time to leave. Oh, I know, you can’t pick up today and drive to Wyoming. You have your job and your mortgage and your kids are in school and your uncle needs to be taken care of and all of your friends live here and a million other things that are keeping you where you are. As I mentioned earlier, it’s amazing what we can’t do when we put our minds to not achieving it. Maybe, well even probably, you are unable to just pick up and leave. But, most assuredly, you can pray to Our Heavenly Father to show you His path for you, and you can ask Him to lead you down it. And then, if He moves your heart towards relocation, you can accept the fact that you should obey His command and not tempt His mercy. And then, you can work towards it. You can start by wrapping your mind around the idea that if God has put it on your heart to prepare, and that your city is not safe, that you should probably try and leave it. You can start to look into putting your house on the market. You can poke around your job at the office and test the waters of telecommuting. (In Corporate America, it’s an “ask not, get not” culture.) If you receive a cool reception, you can hop on this wonderful Internet and look for jobs in your field in a safer area. You can trade that impractical Nissan Versa in for a 4WD Silverado. You can do a bit of digging around at available properties in central Montana. You can take a few days of vacation, fly into Spokane, and take a trip a few hours west to get a feel for the area. I know that I have been immensely blessed with the opportunities provided to me, and that the Lord blesses each of us in different ways, but I also know that if we follow His will, He will open the doors for us to walk through them. Taking that step is up to you; He won’t do it for you. And personally, I’ve no desire to meet my Maker and have to account for why, when He allowed me to see the storm clouds on the horizon and put it on my heart to leave, I refused to take the initiative to follow His lead. Talk about an uncomfortable conversation that would be!

There is Always More

None of the aforementioned at all is meant to be or sound boastful. I am the least among you, and I have a ridiculous amount to learn about so many things. My only hope (other than the Lord) is that I am fortunate enough to recognize that I don’t know anything. It remains a journey and a learning experience, even among the basics that I’m not entirely sure any of us ever truly master completely. Alas, there are a million things “Beyond the B’s”. We could all chime in and discuss them for days, but In the end what order we take them and how we go about achieving them is up to us, individually. More than anything, though, I would like to close by reiterating not to put the cart before the horse. I return to the sage advice mentioned earlier: “Make sure your three B’s are squared away first!”

Living a prepared life, as most readers understand, is not something that stops. One is never properly finished preparing. It is not something one works on for a bit and then says, “Okay, I’m done.” It is a lifestyle of self-sufficiency and preparedness. One of the first things most preppers come across in exploring the basics of preparedness is the three B’s– beans, bullets, and Band-aids. How many times have we read, even on this blog, “Make sure you have your beans, bullets, and band-aids squared away first!” That’s sage advice, and we should all follow it. However, what happens when you walk down into your basement and see your wall-to-wall and aisle shelves looking like a miniature grocery store, complete with pharmacy in the back? What do you do when you see, in the corner, your gun safe bolted to the floor holding a medium-sized gun collection with eight spare magazines per firearm? When you look down and see the floor of the basement lined with surplus U.S. military ammo cans filled with thousands of rounds in your chosen calibers, all sealed with desiccant packages? When you look out your kitchen window into your backyard garden that you’ve slowly built to provide a sustainable food source? When you’ve followed the directions provided (for free, no less!) on this blog to create a hand pump for the second well on your property that was originally dug and used for your sprinkler system, providing you with reachable water in the event of a grid-down event? When there is no more room in your chest freezer for meat or frozen vegetables designed to help feed you and your wife in an emergency?

I was blessed to find myself in this situation approximately fifteen months ago. I had gotten to the point of feeling that I had my three B’s down. I was fortunate enough to realize that there was far more needed than the two years of food supply and weapons and band-aids in the basement to pursue. I knew there was more I needed to do. It was just about branching out and doing it. What I found was that some of these things were/are so vital that they are literally second only to the three B’s, and in some cases just as important. I am nowhere near where I want to be as a prepper and a survivalist. I just want to share some of what I’ve learned going beyond the B’s and what we can and should do if we are able.

Find Your Faith

I admit, I came late to this party. I should have started here, before I so ever bought as much as a grain of rice. Accept the Lord Jesus Christ into your life as your Savior. Ask forgiveness for your sins and repent of them. Develop a relationship with the Lord, and nurture that relationship by finding a church home that glorifies God. Lovingly accept the obligations put on you by God’s grace and forgiveness, and practice tithing and charity. I grew up in the church, but I abandoned it when I joined the military. I fell down the slippery slope of apathy into Agnosticism and all the way to the pits of Atheism. I won’t delve into this slow slide that is so common in our day and time, as an entire separate article could be written on it. Suffice it to say that it was only through the consistent loving persistence of my wife and the unfathomable grace and loving forgiveness of our Lord that I stand here today, back in the fold and congregation, and I am determined to stay there. There are no atheists in foxholes, friends.

Watch Your Mouth

If you are anything like me, you rank going to the dentist somewhere up there between being waterboarded and standing next in line for a turn at Russian Roulette. I always thought I took pretty decent care of my teeth (though my flossing was pretty, um, infrequent). I had successfully dodged going to the dentist for over three years (it’s amazing what we can’t do when we put our minds to not achieving it), when a nagging toothache and a (lovingly) nagging wife finally compelled me to wander into my local dentist’s office. I thought, “It’s no huge deal; maybe I need a filling and a cleaning, and then I can dodge this place another half-decade.” Ha!

It’s a very bad feeling when a dentist walks in after reviewing your x-rays (x-rays? How did I get talked into x-ray?) and says, “It’s a really good thing that you actually have pretty premium dental insurance, Jason.” I was advised that I needed four wisdom teeth extracted, deep scaling and root planning, a root canal, two crowns, and two fillings. I, being myself, rolled my eyes and asked, “Okay, so what do I really just need to stop this toothache?” To wit, the dentist responded, “Jason, I don’t know how you’re not in unbearable pain right now. You should be. Your wisdom teeth are impacted, and your tooth next to your upper left wisdom tooth is so decayed that you’re literally weeks from it being unsalvageable. All of this work can be done in the next six weeks, and with your insurance it will only cost you $1,200.00. You need this. All of this. Now.”

Now, God has blessed my wife and I with gainful, well-compensated employment that helps provide excellent insurance. Though $1,200.00 is not a small number in my house, it was something that we could afford, and decided that we should. So, I got all of the work done. Now, you may be asking, what does this have to do with prepping? The answer is simple. Beyond the B’s, if there is some sort of elective dental process or procedures that you have been putting off, stop postponing it immediately. There is no pain in the world quite like dental pain, and post collapse, your options are likely to be far less palatable than shelling out some cash and sitting in a chair for a few hours with some ibuprofen afterwards. Your likely alternative will be some boiling water, a pair of pliers, and your buddy, Tim, with a flashlight. Yes, I’m referring to the same Tim who suggested using a circular saw to cut a 1/2 inch circle out of a 3×8 board. Yes, that Tim. So, don’t let Tim be your dentist.

Be A Librarian

In this day and age, many of us have become dependent on “instant answers”. It’s understandable. Have a question? Bring up Google. Not sure how to build something? There’s probably a video tutorial on YouTube. Can’t figure out why something isn’t working? Visit the company’s troubleshooting website. The world’s knowledge is a click away, but what happens when the information superhighway breaks down with the grid and those easy answers aren’t there anymore? Then how will you identify what insect is killing your tomatoes? Who will tell you how to build that shed in your back yard or dig that shallow well? The Internet is a wonderful source of knowledge, don’t get me wrong, but a truly prepared individual cannot rely on it anymore than they can rely on the government to keep them safe. To that end, one of the next things to consider beyond the B’s is creating and stocking your own library. I am absolutely shocked at the ridiculously low price of books these days, whether in my town’s local used bookstore or on eBay. There is virtually nothing one cannot find for under $10. So one of the things I have made a conscious effort to build upon is my home library. (Incidentally, our host provides an excellent list of literary suggestions weekly to pick up.)

I firmly believe that, one day, we will be forced to rely upon older technologies for our well-being. Books are one of these. Beyond their usefulness as tools, they offer enlightenment, a broadening of horizons, and mental stimulation that can increase morale and better our overall quality of life. For those of you with children reading this, what will you hand your eleven year old in the hour before bed when the Xbox ceases to work and the iPad has lost its charge for the last time. I’ve worked on creating a strong mix centering mostly on the following:

• how-to and home improvement (I might recommend the Home Depot’s 1-2-3 Series of books, which are very helpful and straightforward),
• prepper non-fiction (The Encyclopedia of Country Living, Self-Sufficiency on a Quarter Acre, et cetera),
• classics (Tom Sawyer, David Copperfield, Atlas Shrugged, The Fountainhead, et cetera),
• biographies (John Adams, Stonewall Jackson, Thomas Jefferson, et cetera),
• historical fiction (if you’ve not read Michael Shaaras’ series on The Civil War or WWII you are doing yourself a disservice),
• religion (The Holy Bible, The Case for Christ, Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance, et cetera), and
• prepper fiction (the Patriots Series, One Second After, Alas, Babylon, et cetera).

Even before any collapse, I’d encourage you to reacquaint yourself with novels and the good old fashioned book. I’d be willing to bet that right now, on eBay, you could get The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn shipped for less than $5. Reading that will do more for your heart and mind than twenty hours in front of Netflix.