Baby Step Into Prepping

[caption id="attachment_18370" align="alignright" width="300"] The struggle is real.[/caption] Remember that time when you were first learning to walk, when you took your very first baby step? Those were the times when…what’s that? You don’t remember? Oh, of course not. Silly me. Let me explain what it was like. You struggled, you fought for balance, and the next thing you knew…BAM! You’re on your face. Again. But that’s OK, you don’t need to feel embarrassed. I was the same way. So was every other human being that’s ever learned to walk. We start off on our hands and knees and slowly work up the strength to use our legs. But before we become proficient at it, we fall down, over and over and over. It’s a good thing little kids don’t know the meaning of the word "defeat," otherwise there would be a lot more adults crawling than walking. But crawling isn’t necessarily easier than walking, no matter what your kid-self remembers (or assumes to remember). Crawling is just the first step into a bigger world. Preparing for disasters is the same way. Daisy Luther from The Organic Prepper shared her story about how she went from newbie prepper to veteran status in her post entitled How to Prep When You’re NOT an Epic Wildernes Survival Guru. When she first started, she said she couldn’t even light a fire that would keep burning. She recalls a time when she first started out learning how to take care of herself from a survival standpoint. Nothing she did worked out. She lamented, “I broke things, froze wood to the wall of my cabin, shivered when the fire went out, freaked out when there was a bear on my porch, climbed out a window and dug my shovel out of the snow with cooking pots because I had left it outside and snow had blown against my door, burying the shovel and trapping us inside.” Yowzah! That doesn’t sound like a good time at all. But, as time went on, she improved. No matter how incompetent we may think we are, we can always improve. Everybody has to begin somewhere. Start slow. Baby steps. Do you have a flashlight? You do? Well look at you go! I bet you have some canned food in your cupboards, too. Go ahead, take a look…So, what did you Replace? Soup, beans, and chili, eh? Well what do you know…You’re a prepper and you didn’t even know it! You see, it doesn’t have to be hard. Without even trying, we’ve identified a few items you can use if an emergency happened tomorrow. But don’t stop there! Continue building your emergency supplies, little by little, every month. Buy an extra can or two of food while you’re out grocery shopping. It’ll start adding up, and you won’t even notice a huge difference in your bank account. It is good to remember, too, that canned food from the stores aren’t packaged to last nearly as long as our freeze-dried food, which is good for 25 years. That being said, you can still rotate through your older food by using it in your meals. Just remember to replace it if you do use it! No matter what your background is, or what your current living conditions or abilities, you can become strong in your emergency preparations. Preparing doesn’t have to be daunting. Just use baby steps until you’re sufficiently prepared…and then keep going! Because being prepared is a continual process. You can do it. I believe in you! How did you start off in your prepping? Was it easy? Was it worth it? Let us know in comments!