True Preparedness Demands Effort

Those Who Work Hard Survive, Those Who Depend Upon Others Suffer

Even the most cursory assessment of those who are striving to be truly prepared yields a clear common denominator among them. Those who are prepared are willing and driven to work, work hard, relentlessly, and without coercion. They know, either inherently, or by experience that only those who “do things” will survive. The lazy, the greedy, the sycophants will inevitably perish.

"As with all forms and matters of preparedness,
being properly prepared requires effort” WH

Your true level of preparedness is much less dependent upon your financial abilities and the “toys” that you have as it the amount of effort that you wish to dedicate. If you are lazy, you will fail to survive. If you are too embarrassed to build kits, develop skills, and practice you are wasting your time. If you afraid to be ridiculed when you pack your survival gear to take with you, then stop now, this is not for you.

The four basic grades of preparedness and subsets:

• Survival Voyeur
  • Prepper
• Active
  • Bushcrafter
  • Survivalist
• Prepared Practitioner©

Survival Voyeurs are titillated by watching shows depicting survival activities but do nothing for themselves. Preppers watch shows, talk to others who claim skill, buy stuff they are told or fear mongered into getting. The things go into the closet, tubs in the basement, or in the garage. On occasion preppers may play out scenarios or tryout skills with others who are on the cursory fringes. Bushcrafters study and practice “old school skills.” Those skills vary from primitive fire, cordage, and shelter making to hunting and trapping. They develop useful skills if you were to be lost in the wilderness without the advantage of modern tools. The most dedicated of bushcrafters prefer to emulate native American Indian skillsets shunning modern aids. Survivalists run the gambit from runner gunners and bunkers and bullets, to a melding of bushcrafting with modern advantages such as guns, ferocium rods, etc. A Prepared Practitioner© is a fusion of all the others. Respecting time tested skills and knowledge, applying every tool available to speed and refine positive outcomes, the Prepared Practitioner© will exploit anything at hand to survive, and thrive. Active and Prepared Practitioner© demand dedicated, drive and determination, they are not couch potato sports. The rewards are tremendous. The lessons and skills learned positively effect everything that you do.

People living in Western cultures of the 22^nd century are the heirs of an easy life. The generations preceding them left a legacy that allows people to “relax,” to spend time on more lofty pursuits than raw survival, allowing them to be soft. Even the poorest of people in first world nations enjoy more and do less than any generation before them, even in civilized nations. It is a double-edged sword. The positive effect is an ability for those of higher intellect to excel to new heights creating technology and broadening the understanding of the world around us. Those advances make everyone’s life better, from the strongest to the weakest, the smartest to the most challenged, everyone benefits. There are negative effects too. People become more sedentary, they lose the drive to work, they are lulled into dependency. The extra time they have allows them to be self-centered, take on trivial pursuits, and reduce their positive contributions to society. As the old saying goes, “idle hands are the devil’s workshop.”

Today we are able to focus on science and the arts, entertainment and leisure. Previous generations, like those in today’s 2^nd and 3^rd world nations are busy toiling at attaining sustenance such as food, water, shelter, etc. There are even some places in 1^st world nations, shunned and ignored by “modern culture”, where people struggle through a hard scrapple life, in the shadows.

Living a happy, healthy, fulfilling life is a result of a complex set of behaviors that span a lifetime, not something that you bought, a class that you attended, or others did for you. Your survival is dependent upon you, your effort, the breadth of your base knowledge, and your drive to survive are the key. The challenge is that the drive required to survive stands in conflict to the lifestyle and trappings of a successful 1^st world nation’s people.

We at SurviveWithWill.com, PracticeSurvival.com, PracticePreparedness.com, and more (see other sites tab) hope to excite you to find the simple sustainable security and happiness derived from living and growing in a selfsuffient lifestyle. Whether you are just starting or you have lived your entire life that way, it is not the destination that matters as much as the journey. Our websites, the articles contained in them, and the classes that we provide are geared to add to your journey.