Let’s Bring Back the Hunter-Gatherer Mindset
Feel empowered in your daily life.
Many of us are trapped between hunter-gatherer and farmer ideologies. We know what it feels like to live paycheck to paycheck and still survive, and maybe even thrive. But we also dream of accumulation — having savings, buying a house, investing. The hunter-gatherer is focused more on the present, and the farmer is focused more on the future.
The agrarian period spanned many lifetimes. About 10,000 years ago, societies in Southwest Asia began to cultivate and domesticate plants and animals. Farmers are future-oriented, for they develop cultivation techniques and manage the land. Farmers are also accumulation-oriented, stockpiling food for the future and selling the excess.
Yet, before the era of the farmer, it was the era of the hunter-gatherer. Hunter gathers were skilled hunters and could identify and use a hundred different plant species. Hunter-gathers were adept at finding their next meal. Counter to our modern perception of hunter-gatherers, James Suzman’s book Affluence Without Abundance: The Disappearing World of the Bushmen argues that hunter-gathers easily fed themselves and had copious amounts of leisure time. They lived affluent lives without accumulation, unlike farmers.
What if we can learn how to flourish in the present? Transform our experiences from feeling like we are living paycheck to paycheck to feeling like we have control over each moment of our daily lives. Many of us are anxious because we don’t feel in control of the little moments that make up our daily experiences. Yes, it’s important to have a clear and strong plan for the future because we can’t escape the realities of our societies. But it is equally important to take ownership and create our own realities.
Like hunter-gatherers, we, too, can learn how to live a life of abundance. Here are three simple truths I learned from hunter-gatherers.
1. Learn a Skill That Will Make You Self-Sufficient
Sometimes we can feel trapped when we don’t think we have any skills. If you don’t know how to fix a flat tire, you might feel less confident when you have a conversation with a car mechanic. If you don’t have any marketable skills, you might be more inclined to stay in a dead-in job. If you don’t know how to hunt or cultivate food, you might feel limited to the grocery store down the street.
When you learn how to fix a flat tire, code, or grow a potato, your confidence grows. And so does your opportunities.
From an early age, hunter-gatherers learn how to find food to feed themselves. Among the Hadza of Tanzania, children 5 years and younger get half their food on their own, and by 6 years old, 75% of their food. At 3, boys receive their first small bow and arrow to hunt for little animals. Children as young as 4 build fires and cook meals on their own in their childhood groups.
Hunter-gatherers are absolutely confident that they will get food from their environment when needed, particularly because they hedge their bets by relying on many different potential food sources. Their knowledge of hundreds of plants allows them to still find food even when the environment has massive changes, such as droughts and floods.
We all know this cliché quote:
Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.
But are you confident that you could feed yourself without a trek to the grocery store? Are you confident that you could make a living without your current employer, employees, or customers?
Another cliché quote:
Knowledge is power.
You will only be confident when you acquire more knowledge. We think the 6-year-old Hadza child is powerful because they can get 75% of their food intake on their own. We are amazed that someone so young can learn in several years about so many different plants and animals.
If these children can learn skills for self-sufficiency, so can you. The hunter-gatherers allow their children to make mistakes to learn faster and acquire knowledge.
Embrace Your Mistakes
Research suggests compared to farmers, hunter-gatherers are less likely to stress obedience and responsibility in child training and are more likely to stress independence, self-reliance, and achievement. Because farmers depend on food accumulation in the long-run, mistakes when producing food are very risky. Yet, when hunter-gatherers make mistakes, the effects are short-lived, while inventiveness can provide long-term benefits.
Think about your life and what skills you think you need to feel self-sufficient. Once you’ve identified these skills, start educating yourself (it can be on YouTube, at a trade school, pursuing a graduate degree, etc.). Then, make as many mistakes as possible. The faster you make mistakes, the faster you will learn how not to make mistakes. The next thing you know, you will have a new skill.
2. Working Hard Does Not Define Your Worthiness
“The almost universal belief now that hard work is a virtue is perhaps the most obvious of the Neolithic Revolution’s many social, economic, and cultural legacies…It did so by making hard work into a virtue and transforming time into a commodity, objects into assets, and systems of exchange into commerce.” — James Suzman
Sometimes will fall into the trap of believing that if we just work hard enough, we will meet our goals. And once we meet those goals, we will be worthy — worthy of love, respect, belonging. Thus, my hard work will eventually prove that I am worthy.
With this mindset, we work, work, work, trudging towards goals relentlessly. However, in some cases, we might be working hard on the wrong things and moving in the wrong direction.
Instead of equating hard work with worthiness, notice if the incentives in your life for working harder are actually worth it. Do you get unlimited vacation days but your employer expects you to work on those vacation days? Do you get a bonus at the end of the year but you are so stressed out from your job that you feel the need to blow your money on food, drinks, shopping, and vacations?
The Khoisan-speaking hunter-gatherers of Namibia, the Ju/’hoansi, did not fall into the trap of glorifying petty incentives. Suzman notes that
“they came and went as they pleased, were prone to disappearing for long periods of time, and seemed immune to any form of systematic material incentivization. Offers of payments, food rations, and tobacco were of course welcomed by the Ju/’hoansi. But — contrary to the expectations of the commissioners, who hoped that the additional rewards would inspire the Ju/’hoansi to work harder and longer hours — it had the opposite effect. They worked less because now they could get the same rewards they had previously but in return for less effort.
Where can you put in less effort and receive the same reward?
Don’t work for the sake of feeling worthy. Work for a goal that aligns with your purpose. We aren’t worthy of love, respect, and belonging because we work hard, but because we are human. It is natural for humans to rest from work — that’s why we sleep every day. Prioritizing rest shows that you love and respect yourself.
Leisure Time Is Sacred
Hunter-gatherers ended up having a lot of free time because they were confident that they could get food from their environment whenever they needed it and didn’t waste time storing or growing food. The hunter-gatherer’s leisure time explains how they had more time to show affection towards children than we do, as leisure time generally decreases with increasing social complexity.
Think about the areas of your life where you are overstretching yourself. Ask yourself why you are working so hard. If you are working hard for a goal that is not aligned with your greater purpose, take a step back and understand your true reasons for working towards this goal. Then, for each goal, assess if there are ways that you can put in less effort for the same or greater reward. Schedule time where you can completely rest without any guilt, shame, or feelings of unworthiness.
3. Stop Obsessing About Being Happy
Today many will say that the goal of life is to be happy. There are even happiness reports ranking the happiness of citizens in various countries.
Happiness is a wonderful feeling, but it’s not the only wonderful feeling. Happiness is elusive — sometimes we feel it, sometimes we don’t. But we might feel the fifty other positive emotions at any time.
The hunter-gatherers had a few basic needs that were easily met. If your wants are limited, then it is fairly easy to meet them. Yet, we live in a society that tells us we have infinite wants and limited means. We then work our butts off so that we increase our means to meet more of our wants.
It doesn't seem like the Bushman thought much about happiness, as they do not have words equivalent to “happiness” like we think of it. But the Bushman had systems in place to encourage sharing, which we know from studies increases happiness and life satisfaction.
Share With Others
Suzman describes how when a hunter had a kill, the hunter would be met with insults rather than praise.
This practice:
“‘Insulting the meat’ was one of the many tricks Ju/’hoansi used to cool hearts, discourage arrogance, and tear down any potential hierarchies before they formed…If insults prevented hunters from getting too big for their leather sandals, it also created an atmosphere in which sharing was second nature.”
Indeed, sharing with others is an important value instilled as early as infancy. In some groups, teaching to share begins as early as 6 weeks to 6 months.
Think about ways that you can share with your loved ones and the greater community. Take several moments during your day to notice when you feel any positive feelings. Pay attention to why you felt that positive feeling. Take several moments during your day to intentionally feel positive feelings.
Take Control of Your Life
- Cultivate a skill — you will be more confident and feel like you have more opportunities in life.
- Work for goals that are worth it.
- Find ways to work less for the same or greater reward.
- Prioritize leisure time.
- Know that you are worthy with or without work.
- Tap into all of the positive feelings life offers you.
- Share because sharing is caring.
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