You Can’t Do It All

As we have closed another year, it's time to reflect on what we achieved or learned and set goals for the new year.  More often than not, I don’t achieve everything I set out to do, and that’s ok.  It’s better to aim high and fall a little short than never aim at all.  It's also a time to acknowledge that we can't do it all.

Every once in a while I come across an article listing all the skills you must have after our society collapses.  Better yet are the ones that proclaim everything you’ll need to learn after the collapse.  Those really make me laugh.

There isn’t time for each person to do it all.  Even now, before total collapse, when stores are still open and the internet is still up, it is really tough to accomplish all the regular daily tasks with my kilowatt slaves to help me out.  Squeezing time in for learning a new skill I’m interested in and for which I may have an aptitude is nearly impossible. 

Yes, everyone in the group who is physically and mentally able needs to know the basics of being able to prepare simple meals, purify water, perform first aid, and maintain hygiene and sanitation.  But beyond the basics, we have to accept that we can't do it all.

Divide and conquer.  You must have a family and a community to share the labor.  People need to have their assigned roles to fill.  The physically capable members can cut and haul firewood (that’s everyone except me).  I can pack them lunch and be sure dinner is on the table when they return.  My husband covers shelter and fuel needs and definitely all the vehicles and their maintenance.  I’m responsible for making sure we have plenty of season-appropriate clothing and shoes. 

Develop your talents.  My areas of focus for family preparedness are food and medicine; my husband and one son are much better at engineering than cooking.  If my family's counting on me to be able to engineer things, we're all gonna be dead and quick.  Down the road, if things unfold such that one of the menfolk in my family is doing the cooking, everyone's gonna be hungry and sad.  Hungry because the food's not going to be prepared as quickly and sad because it's not going to be quite so healthy or tasty.  My husband and sons will do just fine with the canned goods and freeze-dried meals, but they just don’t have the experience of working with our long-term food storage.  It’s not their forte or interest.  That's reality.  No one expects a busy doctor to haul the water and chop the wood, at least not unless it’s absolutely critical.  It would be a waste of his talents.

Recognize physical limitations.  We can't stop time from marching on and leaving its mark on our bodies.  Most of us will need reading glasses at some point.  We might not be as steady as we were in our youth.  Women as a whole lack physical strength compared to men.  Even most physically fit woman is going to be defeated by an average guy in a physical contest.  It is the dumbest thing ever to put women in active combat roles in military or to allow and expect them to perform as well as men in rescue operations.  And then there is the issue of waning strength as we age.  What I wouldn’t give for my 35- or 40-year-old body, but it’s not coming back.  I just don’t have the physical capacity I once had, and forget about working from dawn to dusk in the heat.  I’m good for maybe six hours now.  I finally had to accept the fact that I can’t raise the food, prepare the food, clean the house, do the laundry, learn new skills and keep bees.  The bees had to go.  I hope I will be able to barter for what we need if we ever run out of honey.  Things I can do include exercising and controlling my weight.

Do what you can in advance.  I just really don’t understand the fixation with being able to make soap and candles.  Soap-making was a hated chore among our ancestors.  And it requires using a valuable food source—the fats and oils—for something besides food.  And then you’re messing with lye and trying to get all the chemicals measured accurately and hoping you can make something that won’t be too harsh on your skin.  Soap doesn’t cost that much.  Buy a few buckets worth and put it in the garage.  It doesn’t even have to be rotated.  The same goes for candles.  Learning first aid and getting those medical supplies should also be done ASAP, before the Chinese quit shipping supplies to us.

Recognize what skill acquisition can reasonably wait until later.  Some skills had better be practiced and learned ASAP.  The COVID mess woke a few people up to the reality that they couldn’t expect to be able to go to the store and buy canning lids.  Lids made in the US are still very difficult to find for a reasonable price.  At least pressure canners are back in stock on Amazon.  Skills dealing with food preservation should probably take precedence, as should learning what edible plants can be foraged in your area.  (You know, so you can point out potential food sources to others.)  On the other hand, learning to knit or crochet can easily happen post-collapse, as long as you have the needles and yarn and someone to teach you.

As we aim high to prepare for the interesting challenges 2022 will bring us, we’ll be better off if we focus on areas where our talents lie.  We’ll be able to work together better as families and better appreciate each other’s contributions.  Most importantly, don’t get down on yourself for what you can’t do, because you can’t do it all.  Work on what you can do.