Even the Technology People

I was speaking via email with a cellphone carrier rep regarding an issue I am having with a 3G modem and the lack of a signal for his service in my area.

He advised that I could get a network extender if I had cable broadband.

I patiently explained that we are "off grid", have no cable broadband (nor can we get it), and only have limited power generation capabilities and so my best option is to get this 3G hotspot thing working if I wish to continue to have internet.

His response to the off-grid statement ... "I envy you."

I get this a lot, and I don't understand it.

It would be like me eating a ham and cheese sandwich and someone approaching me and saying that they envy me. "Oh?" I would reply. "Go make you a ham and cheese sandwich. Want me to tell you how?"

In Galatians 5:25 we are told, "If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit."

If you SEE the benefits of an off-grid lifestyle (and they are many) and can acknowledge the better living of such then why would you not proceed with all haste to obtain it for yourself and your family?

I can understand why someone who doesn't understand it would hesitate. If I wasn't sure I liked ham and cheese sandwiches I might not rush to make myself one. That only makes sense. I might try a bite of someone else's ham and cheese sandwich first to see if I liked it before going headlong into the big commitment of making myself one.

What I can't understand is the many people who would acknowledge it as the superior way would then still refuse to obtain it for themselves. I've heard a host of excuses in the past six months:

"I'm too old."

"I don't have the money."

"I'd lose my job" (Always amusing to see this breakdown in logic ... you're too afraid to free yourself from the tyranny of wage slavery because you might not have the wage slavery to fall back on.)

Or my alltime personal favorite, "My wife would never go for it."

That one tends to provoke deep belly laughs until the tears roll from my eyes. Fellas, let me explain something ... your wife is probably tougher than you are and in order to have a healthier, happier, more centered family life which she has always dreamed about would endure cold, heat, and handwashing your dirty, skidmarked drawers if only you could pry yourself away from the televised football game long enough to discuss it with her.

Going off-grid is as easy as falling off a log. I have made it a complicated process, but it doesn't have to be. I know people who just did it, living in a tent or a van until they acquired what they needed. I know and deeply admire a family that lives in an old shipping crate through the hot Texas summers in order to live the lifestyle they know to be superior. There are many points along the sliding scale at which you can embark on this lifestyle, if you should only decide to actually do so.