“Many people in the world have the luxury of having someone breathe down their neck. Homesteaders do not.”
That may sound like a funny statement, but it is true. People who choose the homesteading life have no one to blame for their own personal failures but themselves. This sometimes is a hard pill to swallow when progress comes slowly, and often times Murphy’s law rules the day. I can think of many times I wish I had someone else besides myself to blame for something that wasn’t done right, but for homesteaders, the buck stops abruptly and often. When trying to make your living from the land, there is no room for laziness.
There are many folks who look at the homesteading life and think of it as living the dream. They are right. Living simply, growing crops, dealing with animals and actually being a part of your own sustenance is hugely rewarding and brings beauty, wisdom and insight. However I think that for some people, having to deal with the reality of having to be self-directed would be a hard adjustment.
From cradle to grave, most people in our modern society have many of their decisions made for them. They are raised with a mindset that they just need to do what they are told, and they carry that mindset on with them into adulthood. That is good news for governments and employers, but for people who wish to venture out into the unknown world, it is a mental hurdle that must be dealt with. When you are out on your own, no one is going to tell you what to do, you just have to do what needs to be done, and if you don’t do it, nobody will. When there is no one to teach, you have to teach yourself. When there is no one to lead, you have to lead yourself. Every day there is much to do, and it is rewarding work. Tilling, tending, weeding, planting, feeding, watering and managing the livestock, raising children, maintaining buildings and machinery, the list goes on and on.
This might seem an elementary thought, that people need to direct themselves, but it is a hard concept for many people to grasp. It is easy to follow orders. It takes much more will to go out and pioneer. I have adopted a saying from a friend. “The greatest good demands the greatest risk.” For those who do decide to break the mold, and go out on their own, they are the ones that learn the secrets of the morning. They find that there is nothing so rewarding as that feeling of accomplishment that they receive when a job is finished, and their body feels tired, but they see things coming together. It is that feeling that assures us that the risk we took will pay off, because we are being obedient not to a person we call our “boss,” but to a higher calling back to the garden.
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