Is it inevitable; A dis­as­ter of cat­a­stroph­ic pro­por­tion that changes everyone’s liv­ing sit­u­a­tion going for­ward for good?  Is liv­ing post dis­as­ter just an unfore­seen real­i­ty that many of us have not expe­ri­enced yet?  Look at Haiti just over a year ago.  Look at Aus­tralia with flood­ing that has destroyed homes and lives.

One thing is cer­tain, how­ev­er, that it is impos­si­ble to know when, how, and what dis­as­ter is going to strike.  While read­ing through Les Stroud’s new book, even he real­izes that you can­not be pre­pared for every sit­u­a­tion. Learn­ing EVERYTHING you need to learn to be pro­fi­cient in every sit­u­a­tion is just impos­si­ble.  You (and I) can­not afford the time or mon­ey to learn every­thing we need to learn to be an expert in every­thing.  In fact, if the SHTF and we were thrown back into a third world sit­u­a­tion, my skill sets are not in the blue col­lar area.  I am in sales.  I can­not weld; it has been years since I have done any type of con­struc­tion, etc.  Admit­ted­ly, this is not good for me, or for you, if I was to wan­der by, and you asked what I know how to do to help… This is not a future I would wish upon you or I in the near of dis­tant future.

So, let’s say you are like me; few skills (which by the way I am look­ing to improve upon) and good inten­tions.  What do you do?  Who do you look to?    Well, who are your friends and fam­i­ly?

If you are a read­er of this blog, you may have read a cou­ple of posts I have writ­ten around build­ing a team or going it alone.  As I con­tin­ue to learn, regard­less of past posts, I am real­iz­ing that one thing is cer­tain; that you can­not do it all alone.  It is pret­ty sim­ple to real­ize that.  I see it every day at work.  We are a team, and if some­one does not work in the team men­tal­i­ty, the process and the project fall apart.  That said, team­work will be essen­tial to your sur­vival in a SHTF whether you are Bug­ging Out, Bug­ging In, or just liv­ing in a post SHTF or TEOTWAWKI world.  And unless you have a big fam­i­ly, and each of them have a range of skills that you can call on, you are going to have to go out­side your nuclear fam­i­ly unit.

As an exam­ple, my Mom (yes, my Mom) is great at cul­ti­vat­ing a gar­den, but is aging and would not be good at till­ing the gar­den, mak­ing tools to gar­den with, etc.  My Dad is good at tak­ing apart stuff, fix­ing it and putting it back togeth­er, but not so good at black­smithing, etc.  There is a lot out­side the knowl­edge that the three of us might hold that would be required to live.  What if my par­ents decid­ed to get some goats for milk and food?  I don’t know the first thing about goats, and nei­ther do they.  What if the goats get sick?  What then?  “I dun­no.”  I am call­ing on my friend Tom a life­long friend of the same mind­set as mine, and a farmer with dairy cat­tle.  He may or may not have the answers.  But I am going to ask.  He may be able to point me in the right direc­tion.

Your assign­ment for the night, think about who your friends are out­side your nuclear fam­i­ly that you would think about call­ing on in a sit­u­a­tion where you might need them.  Think about it though, don’t take action on it yet.  This is Part One of a mul­ti-part series…