Versatile Prepping

The prepper community today seems to have a reputation for being very dramatic and paranoid about what is to come. For me, prepping is very different from learning to hunt squirrel and storing jewelry in the walls in case of the apocalypse. I tend to lean towards a more logical and tested approach to things. Along with my standard of being very versatile and being universal with my methods and gear. Prepping for my family is not necessarily a life of hardship and learning how to eat grass soup and soil patties to survive. In my mind, we need to look at history for answers of what we can look forward to at worst if we are to fall victim of a collapse that sends us back to the dark ages.
The main focus of this article is to discuss the general idea of prepping with you. I believe that people who fancy themselves as preppers do not really understand what they are doing. It often seems like they are merely copying whatever they saw on TV, or what they read in some book. The lengths some people go to prepping ends up becoming a huge disruption to their livelihood, and often extends out to their family as well. People will spend every cent of their paychecks and store dried foods and water for the coming end. I will not pass judgement onto these people for their methods, but I will criticize them for disrupting the lives of their families with their neurotic obsession.
I myself can be classified as a prepper since I always have plenty of food on hand for months at a time, and practice growing my own food in order to become self-sufficient. I also have plenty of gear and ammo on hand just because I know how hard it can be at times to come by. I often am ready to have to make it on my own. Many of you would see this as just good sense, but this does pass as an activity for a prepper. I myself do see what I am doing as partially relevant and even geared toward preparing for a collapse or a shift that changes our way of life and the way we live today. That being said, I do not focus solely on this kind of thing. I prefer to have my preparations fill a variety of roles and still have relevance outside of the world of conspiracy and fear.
My recommendation to those of you who are wanting to be ready for the worst is to acquire realistic skills. Learn how to make a safe fire outside and learn how to cook on it. Learn to make your own bread with different methods, how to make jerky, and how to store food for long periods. Yuh know, stuff that is just good to know anyways. Also, i recommend that you learn about 19th century living, because that is the kind of thing you are gonna be left with when you have no electricity. Once you learn to live without electricity, you may find that it isn't as scary or as hard as you thought it was, and it can be pretty easy. Also, you don't have to go out in the bush to learn how to live this way. Just try doing stuff without electricity for a while. Air dry clothes here and there, make your own jerky and bread. Learn how to use salt to preserve meat and how to grow stuff well. Learn what is and isn't necessary, and always improve where you can. You will find that these skills are not only useful, but fun to have and practice.
As for gear, I always have a pack ready in our vehicles with things I have no doubt that I would need in order to get home. I take things I know I would need if I get stranded out in the middle of nowhere Alaska. I find that the loadout never changes and I don't really need much in my pack compared to what other people pack. This is also because i have experience in being left out alone and having to make due in hostile environments. The funny thing, again is that this pack that is ready for me being stranded in a blizzard, also would be the same pack that I would use for an apocalypse bugout bag.
I know this article is vague, but it is just a taste of what kind of subjects I intend to cover in more detail. Just remember that nothing will prepare you more than adding these little skills into your life so that it becomes a hobby, like growing veges and fruit, or making your own bread and jerky. Just don't let these things get to the point of disrupting your life in a negative way. The goal is to acquire skills that you can use now and when things are bad. This way, WROL won't end up changing much in the way you live your life.