The Many Advantages Of A More Self-Sufficient Lifestyle In Belize
You settle back into the timber rocking chair on your long and breezy front porch to take in the scene. Before you and in different directions all around are neat rows of vegetables, fruit trees, and berry bushes…
Your hens are clucking contentedly in their coop, and the quiet bubbling of the stream just off to the side of your house is calming and peaceful. The fragrance of the blossoming fruit trees wafts across the porch with the afternoon breeze…
It’s been a full day, and you’re tired… but what a tired. You’ll sleep well tonight, with no boss except Mother Nature to keep you up, nobody to answer to, no decision more stressful than whether to plant the new bed you’ve been cultivating tomorrow afternoon… or to sit on the porch with the neighborhood kids and shell peas while watching the game.
The troubles of the world and of our age are far away. Stock market ups and downs, recession, the job scene… the elections, politics… questions and concerns about safety and security… you are impervious to any friction in the world outside your homestead.
You are protected. You and your family are safe and provided for… not only today but for the future, as well.
Instead of a painful commute into the city, you walk down your back steps every morning to survey your own piece of land where everything you need you’re able to provide for yourself—food, water, shelter, and even an income.
With each passing season, your lifestyle becomes more resilient, more self-sufficient, more satisfying, and more secure…
The scenario I’ve just described is not a dream but my current reality. This is the life I’m living right now.
On my property, I produce everything I need to provide for myself and my family. I’m even able to earn professional wages from my home (working as a writer) while I care for my adorable but hyperactive 3-year-old daughter. She likes digging and picking fruit, both of which give me great pride as her father… though someday I hope to convince her not to dig out my tomato plants and not to pick the unripe peppers and eat them by the double-handful.
At the end of each afternoon in this little self-sufficient paradise I’ve created for myself and my family, I look forward to my next decision, one of the most important of the day: Do I want a glass of the home-brew or the sun-tea? And will I enjoy it in the hammock or the chaise lounge…
I am not exaggerating at all when I say that, at the end of each day, I feel so alive, so proud, and so genuinely happy and secure in the decision I made to undertake this self-sufficient lifestyle.
Embracing this lifestyle requires no special training or education. With some smart planning and innovative ideas, anyone can achieve the level of self-sufficiency I’m describing with a minimal amount of effort.
If you’ve ever had a taste for the resilient lifestyle, I’d say it’s time to act on that interest and begin to discover the joy and security of self-sufficient living.
If this is your first time considering a step toward self-reliance, take heart. It is so much easier to realize this lifestyle today than it has been at any time in our history.
What exactly, though, does it mean to live a self-sufficient lifestyle?
Very important, today self-sufficient living is not a euphemism for glorified camping. You can embrace a fully self-sufficient lifestyle today that also qualifies as comfortable or even—no kidding—luxury. You can live in a big house… with a gourmet kitchen and as many bathrooms as you’d like. You can have a pool… air conditioning… and all conveniences and amenities of our age, from freezers and barbecues to hot tubs and high-speed internet.
Why would anyone want to embrace a self-sufficient lifestyle?
Maybe you yearn for the idyllic peace and quiet of the countryside and yesteryear. Or maybe you desire the great satisfaction that comes from doing things for yourself and knowing your destiny is in your own hands.
It could be an unrealized desire to be able to walk into your pantry and see shelves fully stocked with the nutritious and delicious fruits of your own labor and to know deep down that whatever may come you’ll be okay.
Resilience, satisfaction, financial gain, and personal pride are only a few of the advantages of the lifestyle I’m both describing and living. For millennia our ancestors have been the proud owners of their own destinies.
If any of these ideas resonate with you, then you should consider pursuing a more self-sufficient life, too.
Many have the false impression that being self-sufficient means toiling endlessly in extreme weather, scratching a meager living from the soil like peasants in the old feudal systems of Europe, and turning your back on your friends and community to join an alternative culture of strange peoples and mysterious practices.
The lifestyle I’m talking about must be reserved for lunatics, sun-worshipping hippies, and social misfits… right?
Wrong.
Today regular folks like me (and you) are learning the skills it takes to become more self-sufficient and independent.
Thinking practically, here are some good reasons to join us:
- Food and energy security…
- No utility bills…
- Better health and general wellness…
- More balance in your life…
- Stronger family and community ties…
- Great personal satisfaction…
- Freedom from market manipulation…
- To work for yourself…
- To take control of your time and your schedule…
- To gain peace of mind…
- To increase longevity…
- To save money…
- To earn money…
Self-sufficiency can be achieved from the comfort and convenience of your own home and garden, in whatever form and to whatever level you choose.
You don’t have to be a mountain man or a pioneer to pursue these ideas, and you don’t even need much space to achieve a real level of independence. Modern intensive agriculture techniques such as aquaponics require very little space. All you need is a balcony.
Don’t have a balcony? You can grow fish and vegetables in your utility room with grow lights.
I can tell you that nothing makes me feel better prepared physically and emotionally for whatever may lie ahead than the self-sufficient life I’ve established for myself here in Cayo, Belize.
It seems to me that some level of self-sufficient preparedness is just common sense in our world today.
Con Murphy
Belize Insider
