Fear

Since starting this blog, I've received numerous emails from people saying that they want to live my life. Oh no, you truly don't, I usually reply. I say that because .....? ..... 

...it's my life, just mine? ...no

...it's a hard life? ....no

...it only for old people? ...no

...it can only be done with lots of money? ...no

...etc

No, my reasoning is that if one really, truly wants to life a more basic, simplistic, homestead, lower standard of living type life without the hectic, stressful, chemical laden, government interference, peer pressure, debt oriented aspects, then you'd either already be doing it or implementing your plans to attain it by now. What do I think is holding people back? The bottom line is fear. 

Fear of the unknown......hey people, go experience the thrill of discovering things! Go explore! Experiment. Try something new. I'm trying new things all the time. Some pan out, some don't. But oh, what fun! There's something nice about figuring out something on your own. Outside people will judge and criticize all the time, but not only do I ignore them, I sort of feel sorry for them. They are obviously missing out on the fun of taking a chance, exploring, and learning. I guess they feel that doing something different is just too scary. 

Fear of failure.....absolutely nothing wrong with failing. For real! I was raised with the idea that failure was not acceptable. Failure was a disgrace. I've seen this sort of training result in suicide. I'm seeing younger generations being raised more and more with this idea. Especially some younger people who are terrified of failing, so they won't even try. They say that they dream of living on a farm, but never make the smallest  step towards that dream. Failure to me is an opportunity to learn. Please understand that I'm old enough to no longer care about my self image, so if I fail at something, I don't give a rat's ass what others think about it. I experiment and fail all the time. I welcome it. I then have the opportunity to learn more about the project and figure out how to make it work. 

Fear of ridicule..... I struggled with this character flaw most of life. I can still hear my mother tell me, "What will other people think?" Yes, she still says it to this day and she's 92 years old! Most of my life I worried about self image. As a child I was terribly shy because of it. Now that I'm retired, I no longer care much. Happily I live in a community where people have a lot of leeway. So being different is normal. But even if I lived back on the Eastcoast, I'd still ditch the fear of ridicule. Gee, after all these years I now understand why some old people I knew way back when did things "their way" and didn't care what others thought about it. I guess they too had moved past the fear of public scrutiny. 

Fear of danger.......I've seen people paralyzed by the fear of danger. Oh my, they might get hurt. It's dangerous. Something could go wrong. So they won't give it a try, whatever it is. 

Fear of being poor.....welcome to life on a homestead. I heard a great saying when I started out, "Lower one's expectations." So instead of expecting to continue living a middle class life, I expected to be living "poor". We're not dirt poor, but I've slowly adjusted our lifestyle down several notches. Thus for the first time in our lives we've actually managed to save some money because we're living a lower life style. So once hubby retires, it won't be a big shock to be living off the farm. We'll already be use to it.        I have to laugh. One of my mainland friends said that I'm learning how to become a hillbilly. Hillbilly implies poor and uneducated. I like the idea of learning to live comfortably off of a "poor" income, but uneducated? Heck no! I'm putting an awful lot of learning into this effort! 

In order for me to successfully homestead, I needed to ditch the fear factor. Fear of the unknown? Yup, it was there. I didn't know how I was going to create a homestead farm. I didn't have a rule book, so I winged it. I tried things, read lots, and gave it a go. Fear of failure? Heck, I expected failures along the way. But I didn't intend to quit just because I failed at something. I intended to learn from it and move on. Fear of ridicule? If others derided my efforts, well so be it. I ignore them. They can judge all they want but I'm not caring. I don't need those kind of people in my life. Fear of danger? Rather than fearing danger, I give it healthy respect. A homestead farm is dangerous. By then, life is dangerous too. I just learn and take care to minimize the danger, and get on with living. Fear of being poor? Nope. I expect it and just plan on creatively having a comfortable life. 

So you say that you'd like to live my life? Well, move past your fears and get on with it.