(#436) "The Crash Course" Chapter 26: What Should I Do?

26 Nov 2018

(#436) “The Crash Course” Chapter 26: What Should I Do?

As posted on the Peak Prosperity.com and the Chris Martenson’s Peak Prosperity YouTube Channel

Background

The Crash Course has provided millions of viewers with the context for the massive changes now underway, as economic growth as we’ve known it is ending due to depleting resources. But it also offers real hope. Those individuals who take informed action today, while we still have time, can lower their exposure to these coming trends — and even discover a better way of life in the process. Extra test

In this Blog, I am presenting the 27 (inclusive of the introduction) installments of The Crash Course, one per week.

Previous installments of “The Crash Course” can be found here:

Chapter 26 of 26: What Should I Do?

Transcript

Before I (Chris Martenson) put the original Crash Course together back in 2008, I lived in a big waterfront house, I had a deep-sea fishing boat in a slip a mile away from my doorstep, and I was very much living “in the system” as vice president at a Fortune 300 company.

But once I brought all that information together, something shifted deep within me and I knew I could no longer live my old life. It no longer seemed relevant to the future I saw approaching, nor fulfilling.

In light of all this, I found myself facing the huge question of “What Should I Do?”, which many of you listening are likely asking yourselves right now.

And for a time, that question overwhelmed me, because back then, there was much less public discussion of these issues and far fewer models for how to prepare for these coming changes – let alone step forward to meet them with any degree of optimism.

So I resisted doing anything at first.

But eventually I simply had to align my actions with my values and in the years since, through study and exchanging ideas with smart, hopeful, engaged thinkers around the world, I learned how.

So, what exactly did I do? Well, I changed a lot in my family’s life. We moved to a more rural area where support from the community was far stronger than the impersonal suburban area we left behind.

We began to grow a portion of our own food, shifted our saved wealth away from traditional paper investments and towards our health and home, always with the goal of decreasing our dependence on the potentially fragile systems that deliver our energy, food and water.

So that was our response. And if you, like millions of others, felt concern, anxiety or even fear while watching The Crash Course, then it’s time for you to take control of your life, too, and begin doing things differently – whatever that means for you.

But know this, even if you don’t have the same or as many options as my family did, there are a LOT of things that you can and should be doing.

They only require that you to decide to begin doing them. You don’t necessarily have to move, or buy a lot of expensive stuff; but you do have to be willing to start changing what you do.

So if there’s one message to take away from The Crash Course, it’s this: It’s time for you to become more resilient and more engaged. Things are changing quickly and nobody knows how much time we have before the next economic, ecological or energy related crisis erupts. Nobody knows when, but we do have a pretty good idea of what is coming.

Either you respond to these inevitable changes or they will happen to you. That’s the simple choice we all face.

Yet I really want you to understand that this is not a message of doom and gloom, but one of excitement and hope. How so? Because it is within your control to enter the coming future with a higher degree of security, prosperity and fulfillment than you enjoy now.

By using the time we still have available to us now, before the trends described within The Crash Course arrive in force, to build resilience. To invest in the practices that will increase your quality of life, whatever the future may bring.

Of course this, is a very big topic, that extends from financial resilience, to physical resilience to emotional resilience – We go into much greater depth into all of these at the PeakProsperity.com website.

But in summary, here are the first steps we recommend for everyone:

Invest in community – In the end, no one can ever be 100% prepared for everything. The #1 factor in your success in weathering any future shocks will be the strength of the community supporting you. Make and deepen relationships with those important to you. Be sure to know what role you play and why others will value it if difficult times arise.
Protect the purchasing power of your financial wealth – Given the extreme economic risks we’ve detailed in this video, we recommend everyone own at least some gold & silver to protect against the probability of a currency crisis. For similar reasons, we’re not big fans of “paper investments” like stocks & bonds right now. But if you do own them, we recommend working with a professional money manager who understands the risks posed by the Three Es. If you can’t easily locate one on your own, we know a few good ones.
Reduce your dependence on fossil sources of energy – This includes both decreasing your personal energy footprint, plus potentially generating some of your own energy (for instance, adding a solar hot water heater to your house). With a little practice, you’ll realize that a small number of changes to your current behavior can dramatically reduce your vulnerability to the price of oil and other fossil fuels.
Source more of your calories locally – The produce in most grocery stores often travels thousands of miles to arrive there. Finding local food providers, plus possibly growing a small percentage of your food yourself, goes a long way to reducing your exposure to price spikes due to increased transport costs. Plus, you’ll find your food is a lot healthier and better tasting.
Boost your emergency readiness – The one thing we can say about a future defined by the Three Es is that there will certainly be surprises along the way. The difference between being even a little prepared for these versus not at all will prove massive. Use the time you have now to put in place emergency supplies for Add food, water, power, health care and other essentials. Hopefully, you won’t need to tap them – but if you do – you’ll be very grateful you had the foresight to put them in place.
Improve your health – a future of less energy means a future of having to do more things ourselves. In certain cases, medical care may either be too expensive or even unavailable at any price. Staying healthy – both physically and emotionally – will take on an entirely new, and heightened, importance.

These steps I’ve mentioned are simply a short list of responsible actions to the changes that are coming.

Again, we spend a lot of time discussing a wide variety of possible responses in greater depth at PeakProsperity.com because there are as many intelligent responses as there are different personal circumstances. But whether you are young or old, rich or poor, urban or rural – there are concrete steps you can take beginning the second you stop watching this video. We invite you to find those things that really serve you, that make you happier and healthier, and cost less and increase your quality of life even as you consume less.

And as you begin this journey, you’ll soon learn that it’s about much more than just yourself. Resilient individuals create resilient families, which in turn lead to resilient communities, then resilient towns & cities, then states and whole countries, and eventually a more resilient planet. By taking action in your own life, you open the door to a better future for all of us.

However you go about doing that, know that you have our support. If you’d like to join other like-minded people who are proactively facing our current and future challenges and opportunities head-on, please come visit us at PeakProsperity.com .

I think it’s safe to say that the next twenty years are going to be completely unlike the past twenty years.

Our mission at Peak Prosperity is to create a world worth inheriting and we eagerly await joining with you on that pursuit. I sincerely hope you’ll take the right actions now, while we still have time and resources, to position yourself wisely – so that for you, and your loved ones and the generations that follow, the changes brought by the next twenty years will be prosperous and joyous.

The time of waiting has ended. The time for action is now.

Chapters are between 3 and 25 minutes in length. All 27 sections (inclusive of the introduction) take 4 hours and 36 minutes to watch in full.

Chris Martenson, is a former American biochemical scientist and Vice President of Science Applications International Corporation. Currently he is an author and trend forecaster interested in macro trends regarding the economy, energy composition and the environment at his site, www.peakprosperity.com.