There Are No Extra Prepper Points for Making Things Harder.

Author of The Widow in the Woods

In the prepping world, it seems like there are two very distinct and diverse philosophies you hear about more than any others.

You have the folks who want to fulfill a checklist and then go about their lives, blithely unconcerned because they are “prepped.” They are. The book said so. They see no need to focus their lives on this or learn skills. They have stuff, and that is good enough for them.

Then you have the folks who savor the hardship. They absolutely cannot wait for the Big Blackout. If electricity might not be around later, why should they use it now? They’ve gotta learn to deal with hard work, and they might as well get started. They can do it. They can grow their own food, ride a bicycle to grind their own grain, and take cold sponge baths with well water. They, too, are prepped. They don’t need a book to tell them so. They just know it, and some of them also know they’re more prepped than YOU.

Then there’s you. (Okay, it may not be you. It’s actually me.)

You sometimes order pizza to be delivered, and you enjoy every greasy bite that you did not cook. You put your plates in the dishwasher afterward, toss in a pod, and turn it on because you’re not a savage, for goodness’ sake.

You hate hot weather (or maybe it’s cold weather you hate.) Maybe you are far more indoorsy than your prepping counterparts, and we can all be sure that the world is ending if we ever find you huddled in a tent in the forest. As I like to say now, “I don’t do that. I’m an inside cat.”

You would prefer a nice hot bubble bath and a good mystery novel to a rugged test run of your most extreme preps. You like to be comfortable, with a climate-controlled environment in extreme weather. You like to be calm.  You prefer a leisurely stroll over a treacherous hike. A soft life with less stress is your goal.

All that stuff just might be your dirty little secret, especially in prepping circles.

To be absolutely clear, I’m not criticizing the way anybody chooses to live. If the homesteading life is for you, that is awesome, and it can be very rewarding. I enjoyed it very much back when I did it. If the off-grid-in-the-boonies existence is calling your name, more power to you. If you’ve opted to live without television and modern conveniences, and that makes you happy, I’m truly glad you found your calling.

I just want to point out that there isn’t only one way to survive the Big Bad Thing, and that we get to have an enjoyable life before the Big Bad Thing. We get to make things easier on ourselves.

My confession

I’ve always been a bit of a free spirit. I’ve lived in the boondocks on a little farm where we raised or traded for a lot of our own food. I’ve lived in the city on a suburban lot. I’ve been an apartment dweller, and I wandered around the cobblestoned walkways of Europe for ages, just seeing the world. I loved every single bit of it, and I’m so happy I had these experiences.

Things eventually caught up with me. A severe, irreparable injury started making all the things I used to do much more difficult. It was painful. It was exhausting. One day of clambering around medieval buildings left me in bed for three days, and barely hobbling after that. I recall sitting there in an adorable Airbnb in Old Town Bucharest, wishing fervently for my own pillows, a truly comfy chair, and the convenience of Instacart. I fought it for as long as I could, but finally, I came back to the US to seek some medical attention from American doctors, to be near family, and to have the comforts of home.

Of course, things got worse for a couple of years before they began to get any better, with several surgeries and procedures to try and repair my ankle and foot to little avail. My former apartment with an absolutely wonderful landlord was really nice, but it wasn’t suitable for a person with limited mobility. It was still way better than living in AirBnBs, but I desperately yearned for comfort and a sense of home.

I’ve recently relocated to an accessible apartment, and the difference this has made in my life is like a sunny morning after a long, dark, stormy night. Here, I can do things that were formerly out of reach, like, you know – laundry – cooking – getting outside without an army of people carrying my chariot and fanning me with large ostrich feathers.

And I realized something.

Oh my gosh.

I like being comfortable. I like making things easier for myself. I am sitting right now, in my air-conditioned apartment on my second-hand down-filled throne – ummm – sofa – with a frothy and delightful caramel iced coffee that I made with my own tattooed little hands and…

I.

LOVE.

IT.

Comfort and shame

For the longest time, I didn’t come out of the comfort closet. I was actually ashamed of the fact that I adore my sofa, I like to watch television and read novels, and that it feels kind of weird not to put a fragrant essential oil in my diffuser every morning while I make a coffee in my convenient pink Keurig. Also, dad gum it, I love the color pink. LOVE IT.

There’s something about this world, the survival and preparedness world, that makes a lot of us feel guilty if we aren’t out there roughing it, yanking out stumps with three days of hands-on labor, slaughtering and preserving our own meat, and eschewing the entertainments and comforts of the modern world.

These things are certainly noble and valuable, but that isn’t the only way to be prepared. That isn’t the only way you can get ready to survive the Big Bad Thing that is always just around the corner. We still have to live in the here and now, and what a shame it would be to miss out on some of the joys in life because we’re so worried about the Boogeyman,

That doesn’t mean I don’t worry about the Boogeyman. (Fill in your favorite flavor of Doom there.) I worry a lot. I worry about money and the economy. I worry about my health and mobility. I worry about idiotic politicians who do the opposite of what they promised, or in some cases, who do exactly what they promised. I worry about all the floods, all the wildfires and mudslides. I worry about diseases and terrorism and wars.

I do everything I can in my current iteration to be ready for as much as I can. But I’ve faced the reality that I’m not going to be out there living like the lone survivor of the Donner party.

This one very precious life deserves to be enjoyed.

No extra points

I deserve to be comfortable. I deserve to make things easier for myself. And so do you.

We don’t get any extra points in life for making things as difficult as we possibly can for ourselves. We don’t get bonuses for purposely avoiding comfort. Nobody is giving me a fluffier cloud in the afterlife if I decide to read serious books instead of those supernatural murder mysteries that I love.

The bad things in life will come. We can’t stop them.  We can simply learn to survive them and adapt to them. One person isn’t a “better prepper” just because they were already grim and miserable before the Big Bad Thing happened.  I mean, I guess they’re used to being uncomfortable, but that’s about it. I’ll be over here, surviving, eating my freeze-dried conversation hearts in my comfy chair and holding my solar hand fan, thanks.

I want to make my life something I want to live, something I savor, something I relax into. I know for a fact that I am incredibly resilient. I don’t have to keep proving it.

And neither do you.

With my health having been so very precarious, I realized how much more important happiness is than worry, stress, and fear. I seek it every single day, some little spark or glimmer of joy, regardless of how mundane.

Sure, things aren’t perfect. But we can create our own little worlds, making them as perfect as possible for us. When the lights go out, I want to have scented candles, and decadent homemade soap, and Oreo cookies, and a good Dean Koontz novel.

When you can make a good life in a bad situation, perhaps that’s the most important measure of preparedness of all.

What about you?

What matters is whether or not you can shift and adapt to changing circumstances. It’s about whether you can take the bad and turn it into something, at the very least, tolerable. It’s about finding the bright spot in dark places, and slowing down to enjoy things as random as a rainbow in the clouds or a perfect piece of toast with brown sugar, cinnamon, and butter.

I am absolutely not saying that you shouldn’t be prepared. I’m just saying, don’t lose the beauty and the joy of today in fear of tomorrow.

Do you have any dirty little secrets that seem kind of anti-prepper? Raise your hand if you use K-Cups to make your coffee. Do you read stuff that isn’t prepper fiction, back issues of Life on the Farm magazine, and the Bible? Do you buy your food (gasp) at the grocery store too?

Let’s talk about our relatable secrets and the things that make us feel happy in the comments section.

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