Simple Living

Great Depression holds lessons for surviving tough economy

It’s interesting that, as time went on, many of the offspring of the people who lived through the depression have obviously retained fewer and fewer of the skills and values that would be necessary to successfully cope with difficult economic times.  This is in part due to ignorance, greed, the inability to delay gratification, and most importantly, manipulation by a greedy and corrupt system.  Now, we need to learn the lessons all over again.

The “System” has developed numerous means by which to separate the individual from their capital.  An excellent treatment of this is an article called “The Gospel of Consumption.”  Understand this!  And do not allow yourself to be milked like some stupid cow.

We will learn these lessons of depression-era living again it seems, but maybe this time, after the dust settles and we count the heads of those remaining, we can retain them and pass them on to future generations so that they will not be so dependent on an increasingly fragile and complex system that is just itching to shear them like sheeple.  Do this for yourself, but more importantly, do it for your children.  Teach it to them, and do so primarily by example….that’s what they will be paying most attention to anyway.

• Avoid debt like the plague it is.
• Make due or do without.  If you cannot afford it then you cannot have it.
• Be happy with what you already have.  It’s called “Thankfulness”
• Be good stewards of the resources you currently possess
• Run your household like a business, because it is a business

"And that ye study to be quiet, and to do your own business, and to work with your own hands, as we commanded you;
That ye may walk honestly toward them that are without, and that ye may have lack of nothing." (1 Th 4:11-12)