Self-Reliance

Well designed houses can make their residents self-reliant in energy production, 4D Home / Massachusetts

Sometimes the thought of changing the world seems like too much. Just taking care of ourselves is a full time job.

Often what works against both self change and world change are dependence and self-doubt. Both are magnified when we settle into overly comfortable physical and mental landscapes that lull us into settling for the status quo.

A healthy dose of self-reliance is beneficial because it is empowering to be able to take care of ourselves. It makes us strong.

In recent decades we have increasingly become dependent on corporations to provide almost everything. Instead of taking care of ourselves, like previous generations, we work at jobs that are often mundane or worse, to make money, so we can exchange it for the things we need and want.  

We buy fast, prepared, and restaurant food so we don't have to cook. We buy child care so we don't have to stay home with the kids. We buy music so we don't have to make it ourselves. We buy food from the other side of the planet so we don't have to grow it. We make ourselves weak.

Things like growing/preparing food, and raising children are not things that get in the way of life - they ARE life. What kinds of pleasurable experiences are we foregoing by choosing to work so we can pay other people to be responsible for the parts of our lives for which we no longer have time?

How will we know the joys of gardening and cooking if we are paying Monsanto and McDonalds to do it on our behalf? When will we discover that we can make our own energy if we are dependent on large utility companies and the grid? How can we raise our kids if we don't spend time with them?

It may be that your neighbours will help out in a crunch, but you can never trust that you will be saved by anyone. You will certainly never be saved by a corporation.

According to Ralph Waldo Emerson, "nothing can bring you peace but yourself." No government, or corporate entity is going to save us - we are  going to have to do it ourselves, individually, and cooperatively. We can make ourselves strong through healthy self-reliance, then we can change the world.


See more energy self-reliant solar homes here.