Folks,
This is the stock answer and story line I use to get my point across to others.
Do you know who the first survivalist in history was? The answer is simple, Noah and his Ark.
I am being faced with the same decisions as Noah. I am preparing myself and my family for a storm. With food, med supplies and all of the gear I feel I need to insure the survival of my family. Read into that anything you choose or choose not to.
When you come to my door asking for help. I have a few choices.
1. Open my door to all who come and turn none away. That would result in my supplies being run out quickly and then I have no means to care for my own family and would have to become a predator to survive. That is not a viable solution!
2. Keep a certain amount of supplies on hand to "donate out" to those that come to your door, like some rice and beans so that you have helped a bit, but those supplies will run out sooner or later. Then you will have to turn them away.
3. If you do not help folks at all and it is a short term problem you will end up being the most hated person in your community for your actions. Even though you are "right" in your view point it will not matter to those that got turned away and all who listen to thier tounges wag.
Which leaves us to a viable solution for me.
4. Folks I have tried to help you. Like Noah I warned you of the storm that was coming. I told you to prepare for your familys. You called me crazy, stupid, a nut case.
You treated me in the same manner that the people of the time treated Noah when he tried to warn them. So while I worked, saved my money and sacrificed to put away food supplies, medical supplies, and the means to protect me and mine. You choose to go out to dinner 2 or 3 times a week, go to the NFL football game, you went on vacation to europe, you buy a new car every year, I am driving a 8 yr old car that is in great shape and so forth.
The classic case of the fable of the Ant and the Grasshopper.
So now, like Noah, when the storm is now here. When the cries and pleas of those who came to Noah for help when the storm hit, did Noah open the doors of the ark to help them or did he leave them to the fate of thier own making? He did not help them. They were left to thier own fate.
I am sorry, I cannot help you know. I tried to help you. I told you what was coming. I advised you on what you could do to help your familes. I am sorry that you did not listen, but like Noah, I cannot help you now. You are on your own.
Most folks when you explain this to them in the simple terms and the biblical comparison end up looking down and saying "you are right, I need to do something". They then know that thier fate is in thier own hands. choose what ever mets your needs, but choose wisely!
To include this is important as well.
If I am wrong, and nothing happens or comes, how have you been hurt by preparing yourself and your family a bit? You are now a bit more self suffient and not so dependent on everything having to be OK to live and survive. You are out nothing! Call it your own version of life insurance!
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