Putting all of your eggs in one basket

I recently started watching a National Geographic Channel show called "Doomsday Preppers." It is a show about people who are preparing for the day the world as we know it comes to an end. Not just the Mayan calendar version of the end of the world, but some are prepping for the collapse of civilization, or the world economy, or because some charlatan has proclaimed that Jesus is really on the way this time. What amazes me is that how short-sighted some of these people are.

Most of these people live in the 'burbs and have great stockpiles of food, water, ammo and whatever else they think will get them through the Zombie Apocalypse. One woman had stockpiled five years of food and even had thrown a party to show what she could do with her stockpiled Campbell's soup and Rice-A-Roni. One person on the show lamented that he only had 3 years of water stored and had to store even more. Not hardly a mention of what happens when this stockpile runs out, and I have never understood the need for thousands of gallons of stored water when a simple water filter and rain will provide all the water you will ever need.

And what of the people who are stockpiling gold, who have the mistaken belief that it is better to invest gold than in things that could actually be used for trade, like seed, stock, simple tools and skills. Or how they will hope to survive without the power grid that they have become reliant upon.

The one sane person on the program was a woman from New England who was stockpiling food that she raised herself in her garden. It wasn't a huge garden, but about the size of what an average suburban back yard looks like around here. She also did not have a huge stockpile of munitions that many of the others on the show claim is necessary "to keep others from taking my stuff." She instead was forming good relationships with her neighbors, so that if the time ever comes, they would have a community to draw upon.

What a unique idea. Form a community of like-minded individuals (usually known as friends and relatives) that bring a variety of knowledge and skills to the table. Some will know how to raise food, some to hunt food, some to fix things and others to do whatever they do. Unlike the woman who had stockpiles of stuff in her basement and will shoot anyone who tries to take it, people who build a community don't have to worry that people will take their stuff. And after three or four years, when the hoarder runs out of food from her pantry and having spent all this time self-imprisoned in her home, and our New England neighbor will still be planting and harvesting, and have someone to talk to.