Guest Post by Hardscrabble Farmer
Live according to the seasons. Work longer hours in the Summer, rest more in the Winter, observe the way animals behave seasonally and mimic them. No one gives them direction and yet they all seem to be able to discern the difference in length of day and ambient air temperature and act accordingly.
Eat food that you have raised or that has been raised locally or sourced from places you know and trust. Avoid processed foods at all costs. As much as possible eat seasonally; fresh fruits and vegetables in season, meat based diets in colder months. Fermented foods should be a constant in your diet to maintain gut health.Moderate alcohol intake is beneficial, so too are natural stimulants like tea and coffee, in moderation.
Work physically for as many hours as you are capable at something productive. Make sure you use your whole body, and work to your limits whenever possible.
Drink plenty of water fresh from the well. Observe how often animals drink and how deeply.
Find things to keep your mind occupied in a positive manner; prayer, contemplation, planning, dwelling on things you have read or observed and try to find the connections and patterns between all of these things and apply them to your daily life whenever possible. Work at puzzles, solve problems, build or craft things whenever you can.
Spend a significant portion of your day outdoors in all weather and acclimate yourself rather than seek a way to avoid cold or inclement weather.
Find humor in all things, share it with those around you and use it to dispel anxiety by seeing the lighter side of even the darkest subjects.
Seek inspiration in others. Find great works to contemplate, either in music, art or writing and consider your connection to those who created them. Try to integrate those beautiful works into your own life and find ways to add to the tapestry of life with your own personal gifts and abilities.
Do for others as often as possible even when there is no reward for yourself. Selfless acts benefit greater numbers of people than those directed at personal gain. Share your skills freely and often and always be willing to accept a hand when offered. In this way true community is built and both the giver and recipient experience real connection to one another. Spend time in the company of people you love, admire and respect and avoid those who seek to cause turmoil or perpetuate discord.
Speak truthfully to others and seek the truth for yourself internally at all times, not to prove a point or to gain advantage, but to find harmony with your Nature and your purpose in life. Accept the things in life as they are rather than as you wish they were. More than anything you can do in life to find peace and contentment remember this; to thine own self be true.
Sleep well because you have labored intensely. A well worked day delivers a good night’s sleep. Before you drift off, think back on the day and what you have accomplished and where you have failed and consider the differences that led to each. Be content in your effort and thankful for the day.
Listen to your conscience, it understands you better than anyone else, knows your faults and your limitations and will never ask you to do anything that will bring you harm. Accept that everyone has moments of weakness and forgive those transgressions when they occur, but endeavor to erase them from your future actions. Hold yourself accountable rather than look for fault in externals.
This world consumes us all, our passage through it delivers us all to the same end, but the journey is one of sublime beauty if we only stay true to our destiny and persevere through whatever trials or setbacks may occur. The greatest gains in life are not the highlights or rewards, but the lessons learned from loss and failure. These strengthen us rather than tear us down if we possess the right frame of mind and remain constant in our values.
And above all things, be grateful, for this singular chance to experience the wonder, beauty and ineffable wonder that is life, not something we earned or sought, but a gift given to us freely by our Creator and seek to fulfill His plan for us no matter where it may lead. Give thanks for the day, no matter what it gives us, for there is a purpose under Heaven.
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Sage advice top to bottom. Live for today for tomorrow will take care of itself.
Many thx for much of your writings. Don’t agree with some but we’re not here to be clones but to learn from each other and see other perspectives.
To steal a line from Marvin Gaye…
“Let’s get it on…”
Beautiful.
Wow, so many words of wisdom. What a great read for this day! Thank you for posting it and sharing your thoughts with us. It could not have come at a better time and I will be sharing it far and wide.
Gratitude gets you thru the Hard Times.
As does The Hard Work.
Many thanks for the beautiful words, HSF … and may God”s Love and Mercy and Grace be upon US all …
AMEN!
I wrote this for my son.
MY TOP TEN HOW TO LIVE
My list incorporates a lot of freedom and flexibility within goals. I think these ideals should promote lightheartedness and the rewards of freedom and shouldn’t feel burdensome and fraught with ongoing guilt when not perfect. Better to increase the frequency of better choices naturally for getting tired of the results of the bad choices. The only goal I feel is important to attach the fiercest rigidity of no-exception intention to is #1 as it becomes the bigger and bigger rock everything else gets strength of conviction from.
1. Live your truth at every opportunity no matter what the cost. I’m so glad that I took a chance suspecting that constantly contributing this kind of courage to your soul enables it to grow stronger and freer and is the best way to spend lifetimes – relentless courage to let go of false beliefs and change, courage to stand up to physical, mental and/or spiritual attack on your convictions, courage to be vulnerable and love.
2. Find a way to make a comfortable, stable living at something soul rewarding as the first requirement – something or things you are very good at and love to do. Work for yourself if you can’t find anyone to work for who values you and rewards you fairly. Don’t settle for being anyone’s slave for higher pay for a career (except while also working towards getting ‘other’ together). A career just to get money enough for possessions as goals/rewards are ongoing money drains and deepen enslavement in the long run and are not even rewarding.
3. Let go of relationships with lovers or friends and even relatives who drain your energy with eternally unresolving issues and are not interested in radical honesty, deep self-analysis, correcting and improving themselves and helping you do the same.
4. Eliminate all processed/GMO/MSG/ and foods with bad oils and corn or soy derivative ingredients foods, period. After that, eat what you want and if it makes you feel bad don’t do it anymore and don’t berate yourself about occasional indulging in things you mostly avoid. Might even be healthy to throw a wrench at a healthy body once in a while to get it stirred up and stay greased up and ready to defend.
5. Have a daily regimen of movement, exercise, being in nature whatever method you enjoy.
6. Avoid all vaccines completely and pharmaceuticals and the traditional medical establishment as much as possible. Feel the relief of knowing without doubt that you can find the cause and heal yourself of anything, then figure it out as needed.
7. Keep your home surroundings reasonably clean, organized and free of chaos because it reflects your mind, and without it your mind will be prone to also projecting similar muddyness and chaos in it’s exterior.
8. Explore, marvel and delight in this grand miracle we live on as much as possible – respect the vast richness of nature, people and minds and constantly feel in awe and grateful for having another day that will happen just once in all of eternity all day long and never again.
9. After you ‘wake up’, start recognizing deeper and deeper delusions and lies and feel the empowerment of being repelled by mass media. Don’t feel burdened by your inadequacy to right the mountain of wrongs you find yourself in a sea of – the unfathonable pain, immaturity, corruption, addictions, bad choices and rutty paths by so many around you. Know that cleaning up your stuff and leading by example is the best way to contribute to the whole. It’s OK to let everything else be, what everyone else needs to experience to grow is their path and creation.
10. If you’ve established all of the above and know you have a partner you are in tune with for the long haul – have kids! They will push all your buttons, force you to deal with all your remaining issues and you will grow and love in ways you wouldn’t have the opportunity for without them.
Sage. Thank you.
Amen Brother!
Thank you so much for the beautifully written words of wisdom. This reminds me of the “Desiderata “.
There are many Desiderati waiting to be released, but all are contingent on the first sentence– “Go placidly amidst the noise and confusion………” Farmer has simply stilled himself to the point that he wrote his own. We should all do likewise.
Have listened to some snips of Dave Goggins philosophy, Tao, way of being. Most, me included, couldn’t take it to the limit ♪♫♪ he does (even if he would say those are just my self-imposed mental limitations (everybody’s) talking at me ♪♫♪) – but me, most, not being able to take it as far doesn’t make him wrong.
“Rules” are for ruleds, a free lunch courtesy of rulers. Laws have nothing to do with all that codependent enabling & circle-jerking.
First time I loosed an arrow at a bass, I missed by a foot. Refraction. Ma Nature is full of sleight of hand laws that ain’t geared to your own highest best interest/s – but to hers.
So cue Jeremiah Johnson combining mountain winter cold plunge therapy with fishing-grabbing (you know the scene).
What the script meant me to take away from that was intuitive-obvious.
And there was a dry, horseback, Crow with a stringer-full slung off the pommel (see? that’s some counter-intuitive Crow, right there) just to make sure point was taken (that ain’t workin’, that’s the way you do it – money for nuthin & chicks for free ♪♫♪).
Mountainman in 1840’s had room temperature testo 3x higher than yours. Huberman & the whalepodcasters say it’s discovered that cold plunging can ramp T another 5x. Goggins, the mind is the master power masochist, says embrace the suck.
Mostly tho it’s Soft Times At Ridgemont High. (Don’t even get me started on what “tough guy” Sean Penn says.)
Suspect intuition. Suspect the efficacy of emulation (monkey see monkey do). The usual suspects is usually, almost always, pre-Opposite George.
Maybe INTJuition (not that Meyers ain’t mostly just another Brig that most can check out of any time they want, but that they can never leave.)
I like to think the Hotel Californians that moved their mess to Montana got froze & frostbit recently. Skankee, go home!
“Mind is the Master–power that molds and makes, and Man is Mind, and ever more he takes the Tool of Thought, and shaping what he wills, brings forth a thousand joys, a thousand ills–He thinks in secret and it comes to pass; Environment is but his looking-glass.” ~ James Allen
Puzzle-work. Absolutely.
Puzzle-play is better, tho.
Romans 12… 😊
Beautiful. I just try to follow KISS.
Keep it simple stupid.
With all the negative around us all, it is truly refreshing to stop and pause to read something with a positive note to it.
Live the day and live your life as best you can for in the end it is only yourself that you have to answer to in this life and God in the next.
Thank you for organizing these thoughts. You give words and inspiration to help me do deliberately what I have already been figuring out on my own more haphazardly. Surely credit is due for all the influences on me including writings on TBP, but I have been doing these things as I am able and it is enough to tell myself that change takes time.
Thank you for a great refocus.
Very nice. A roadmap to a joyous and gratifying life right there
Inspiring goals for 2023. Thank you!
Awesome. A disciplined body, wise mind, and a virtuous character.
Road kill, bruh…no one has to go hungry
…evah.
https://youtu.be/N0DtAx-tugc
Hunting and fishing while not the whole answer can help: