"Make America Great Again has only Just Begun" Trump agrees. Permaculture is the Answer! Woooooooo! Are you Prepped to Garden?

submitted by RelianceTrust from (youtu.be)

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[–]ReeferMadness 4 insightful - 1 fun4 insightful - 0 fun5 insightful - 1 fun -  (1 child)

I'm really into self sufficiency, but I realize now that it's not an improvement on society. I grew up poor and had to figure out how to do everything or it just wouldn't get done. I always had a hard time understanding how people can get by without tools. How can you afford to have a plumber fix a leaky faucet? A mechanic fix every flat tire? An electrician install a ceiling fan? I reasoned that they must go without doing and having a lot of things I have that they just can't afford to pay for.

I extrapolated from that paradigm the idea that if I am so much better off with basic handyman skills that every little thing I can learn to do will have massive compounding benefit. That the best way to live is to do everything myself.

As I got older I learned that there is a reason rich people dont live like that, and it's not because all the poor people are so much smarter. And it's not simply because they are so rich that they would rather pay to have someone else do it. The reality is that specialization is extremely powerful. If you change your own brakes it will take you several hours once you factor in all the time it takes to look up part numbers, order brakes, find all the tools, and do the dozens of little things that add up. As a mechanic you can do that in 15 min.

If you spent the time that it takes you to learn those hundreds of skills, used the money that it cost you to get all those tools, and used them to become a professional at something you end up being far more productive, and far more wealthy.

A society that has 100 specialists vs a society with 100 mavrics with 100 skillsets will be far far more productive and wealthy.

And a person who is a master of one craft will be far more wealthy than a craftsman at 100 skills.

[–]Zapped 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

This is a great write-up. It's exactly what I learned later in life than I could have. A specialist is far more valuable than a jack-of-all-trades. There is nothing wrong with hobbies, but time is, arguably, the most valuable of our tools. A person highly skilled at their trade will do a better job in less time that someone who is not in the top half of their trade. I can add that there is something that life experience instills in a person that can be gained by no other means. This can positively affect any and every part of your life between the professional and personal.