Anxiety From Reliance On Food and Water. Any Advice?

I've spent many months living off of savings working on a project that may or may not produce a residual income. I hope it does, but the project was started to promote critical thinking and encourage the pursuit of personal goals, rather than money and societal status. The project is nearing completion, and through this time of not producing an income, I've had much time to think.

I believe the reason I am feeling anxiety is because I know I am not free, and know that I am dependent on a large network of people to provide basic survival needs. I don't have the resources to become self-sustained, and I'm not sure if this feeling of anxiety will ever go away because of this. I hate relying on other people, but again, at this point, self-sustainability appears out of reach. I try meditating and my mind races with doubts and uncertainties. I try exercising. I read. I write. And while I may be able to temporarily refocus my mind away of financial/survival fears, it always comes back.

I understand that American society has corrupted my reasoning, and understand that I'm healthy and need very little to merely survive, but I have to rid myself of this anxiety and I don't know how. How can I quiet my mind and retrain my thinking to disconnect from the importance of monetary matters and surrender to the ways I get my food and water? Again, any feedback is appreciated.

reply to post by DaveakaRNG


two words

"GET MARRIED"

lol

spouse will not let you starve-- and they usually do laundry also....

Mark Twian said ," i spent my life worrying about things that never happened ". Go back to the dawn of time and there were always wars , rumors of wars and prognostication of immediate world ending events . In this electronic high speed age the latest earth ending events travel the globe at the speed of light and if we took them all seriously we'd be hiding in the basement with a potato , willing to defend it with a Swiss Army knife . We do have the technology to extinct ourselves or blast ourselves back to the stone age but it isn't something worth going to bed worrying about . Possible natural calamities but only possible and then there is the flat out bullsh*t that far out weights even the remotely possible . The world isn't ending in 2012 no matter what some 17 year old sitting at the key board says and you can take that to the bank . Hopefully you or i don't get run over by a bus in the meantime and barring a personal tragedy , we'll still be here in 2012 and 2013 and on .

Preparing is always a good thing whether it's for a home invader , a severe winter or summer storm or a bigger upheaval in the economy but that doesn't mean spending every dime on grub , guns and gear or bugging out and dropping out to the wilderness to grow a clandestine garden and defend it with a machine gun . We just prepare the best we can and that can mean paying the credit cards down , buying an extra can of soup when we need a can to stock the shelves to maybe 5 gallon buckets of freeze dried or dehydrated rice and beans .

Self sufficiency isn't the same as self reliance . No one has ever been self sufficient for any extended period of time . For 3 million years people have lived in tribes so some can gather fuel , others can tend garden , others can hunt meat , others can gather water and others can build shelter . Self sufficiency runs out when the stockpiled and hoarded gear runs out . A millionaire can stockpile more gear than you or i which means that he may last slightly longer just going by hoarded cargo . The self reliant can keep going . A myth of the early history mountain men was that they were totally self sufficient . Not so . They may have been out for years but they traded all of the way and were very self reliant . A mule load of goods , go to the extreme wilderness for 2 or 3 years and return to buy a nice home in St. Louis . If they wanted to be self sufficient for those 3 years instead of self reliant they would have went out with 60 mule loads of hoarded and stockpiled gear .

If you're really concerned of what to do if the power goes out forever , stockpile some to be self sufficient as long as you can and re-learn the old time skills long forgotten to trade so you can become self reliant by being of value to those without the knowledge . Sounds funny but read the ancient Sumarians and the written history forward and we see priests and sorcerors and silver smiths and cart wrights but look closer . The most important , most valuable person in every village and town was the brewer and the guy who could distill alcohol . In every example in history when times got bad , beer and alcohol sales skyrocket . Learn to make stuff and fix stuff and every skill can be traded for stuff with those who have hoarded it . Can you braid rope to make a harness for horses to plow the soil after the gas is gone ? No one remembers how but it's going to be valuable knowledge , maybe . Can you raid a junk yard and make a hand powered water pump ? That may be worth a month of food . Can you re-sole a pair of boots or shoes from an old tire ? Can you make a water purifier as good as anything that can be purchased on store shelves today ?

The list is endless and free all over the net , the old time skills and knowledge but almost no one seeks it out because it's much more exciting to read about the ancient Mayans who had so much knowledge that they knew the precise date hundreds of years in the future when the world will end but didn't have the knowledge to save themselves . Kind of a contradiction that many will defend vigorously but i wonder if they'll be so disappointed to be alive in 2013 .

We read of the self sufficient survivalists who have spiffy camo clothing , matches and disposable lighters , assault rifles and a 6 month supply of food . Gonna make a real spiffy looking corpse in 7 months when the food runs out and they have no marketable skills to offer or trade . Most of those very valuable skills can be aquired free and whatever you make or manufacture along the way in practise can be sold . We live in a disposable world but if every thing goes real bad , stuff will have to be fixed and re-used . Almost everything manufactured of metal that breaks will have to be welded but without electricity and highly specialized gases , welding is impossible except that folks have welded since the ancient Roman times . A forge and cast metal , you bet , a broken part that can't be fixed can be manufactured which may mean that the farmers broken plow that can't be fixed , can be fixed and the job is probably worth a month of food .

You can stockpile cargo to be self sufficient until the cargo runs out or stockpile some cargo , knowledge and skills and be self reliant and marketable in troubled times .

Look up Louise L. Haye on You Tube or here on ATS using the search function. She is one of the earliest proponents of the positive thinking idea. She will help you understand that "the universe" has the best intentions for you, and you need not worry or fret.

What you focus on, good or bad, and give attention to is drawn to you. You seem to be putting energy into some positive alternatives, but at the same time doing a lot of worrying, which sounds counterproductive. Give her a listen. She is an old lady already in her videos, but is very up-beat and inspiring. There are lots of people promoting these ideas. Once you are into it you will discover more.

Good luck to you.