As the issue of long-term and repeated receipt and payment of recipients of the National Basic Livelihood Security System emerged, the qualitative meta-analysis method of Noblit and Hare (1988) was used to understand the essence of participating in self-sufficiency projects, which can be a driving force for self-sufficiency. Based on the analysis, the first step, the experience before participating in the self-sufficiency project, was “driven into poverty amid life crises and struggles,” and the second step, the experience of participating in the self-sufficiency project, was “dreaming of the future in barrenness with nowhere to go.” In the stage after the experience of participating in self-sufficiency projects, a comprehensive theme of “moving toward rationality in the cogwheel of maintaining and escaping self-sufficiency projects” was derived. The concept that finally abstracted this was “moving toward rationality in the dilemma of comfort within the system to survive” and “self-reliance outside the system.”