One thing I know from experience is that the less you have and the less you make, the less the government is interested in you. The secret to getting them all to pretty much leave you alone is to live in a shack with very little land and very little income.

But that way of life is not for people that are afraid of everything. I have to be brave to live on the edge of homelessness day after day. I know some people that could never do it. They are the type of people that are afraid of everything. The same type of people that try to convince others to be afraid of all the same things that they are, with their doom and gloom stories.

But really, living poor is not too bad if you can overcome the fear. In many ways I find it more rewarding than if I had a lot of money. Sure, we don't get to go on vacations or to places that cost a lot of money, but we do a lot of things that are still fun and we enjoy the inexpensive pleasures of life; as an example, an $8 cell phone to me is a big deal, ha!

Which is why I get so excited about each $25 load of firewood I sell; it's because $25 is 1/200th of my normal annual income! Each load sold makes me feel like a millionaire! When I sell 10 loads...wow....I feel like G. W. Bush himself, at the top of the world! And I still don't make enough money to have the gubbermint worrying about me, I'm not worth anything to them....problem solved!

I don't even know when the government changes from one party to the other unless I happen to hear about it on the radio or something. It's all the same to me. Price of gas goes up?....we don't use enough to notice much difference. Property taxes go up?....I have seen other houses like mine parked along the side of the road with $750 spray-painted on the window. Heating gas and oil goes up?....I don't use any. Electricity goes up?....normally we don't even have any lights on. Income tax goes up?....well, you can see where this is going, ha!

So, if you really want to enjoy life (and I mean life itself, not all the accessories for life that can be bought), you need to sell the house, move out of the city, and learn to cut firewood. Their is no need to be afraid, as long as you start out with the right attitude; you have to go at it knowing that no one is going to help you with anything, especially not the gubbermint. You are responsible for your own survival. And probably the hardest lesson for me to learn is: "DO NOT let anyone's problems and fears become your own!" (I'm still having a hard time with that one and I was just recently given another lesson about it.) Look out for yourself and to hell with other people's fears and problems. Worrying about them and trying to help them doesn't get you anywhere in the end anyway; just more fears and problems that aren't your own to begin with. The gubbermint included!