Hello mates, glad to see you pass by. Have a drink, it's on me.
They're all gluten free and vegan, as pixels have no nutritional or judgmental value.
Well you should be glad too, as you most likely are a 25-34 year old guy (statistics aren't on your side if you are a girl or a pokémon-gendered person, but this may apply to you as well) who remembers 2008 clearly, when zombie apocalypses and preppers became mainstream, and most of us ate on cups and dishes instead of old mayo glasses and shovels - but most importantly, we were all living a simple life, debt free while enjoying our last teenage/young adult years with sugar-fueled LAN parties, without any of your actual anxieties on sight.
This could have been you, but you had to get a life.
Nostalgia aside, and fast forwarding a decade, you happen to live a life well spent on the internet, some of you HODLing and FUDing, some others tindering, and some more clueless of their meanings. Anxiety and mild diabetes aside, you are a productive member of society and most likely, probably believing the world is more intolerant that it really is.
But some have to keep the madness, because drugs aren't going to sell themselves.
But sometimes you figure out, either on your restroom or before sleeping, that all the stuff you have at home is made by someone else, and some beautiful day there's a collapse on society because of a natural or man-made event and all their supplies become scarce. "Oh, the apocalypse!" - Some of you may say. "I could do this, just give me a lifetime ration of snack cakes" - The smug ones may say. Well, as someone who not only lived, but was formed through instability, and got a hold of it without any psychological issues behind, I could tell you the following:
These are the first 4 volumes. - Former psychologist
It ain't as bad as it seems
Indeed, life could be tough when your livelihood is affected dramatically by anything you can't control, and obviously you want to be reactive and destroy whatever scapegoats are blamed of your curse, because well, they're making your life miserable.
That goat Steve, ruining your life again.
But one of the things I had to learn early in my life is that you can't spend a lifetime blaming everyone else for your personal situations, either you adapt to them or the misery waves will keep you down. Time won't wait folks, and we're all too young to deal with people or media that only tells you how every situation has gotten even worse since yesterday. Let's show class folks, and remember this: Get a broad image of what's happening before reacting. This could save you someday.
Not reading the news, better than Prozac.
So, what can one do instead? Well, this is the tricky part: you have to determine what's causing instability on your life, that being negative people around you, non-essential stuff that hurts your finances, or the place where you live. Later you have to plan how you will get rid of it, because their impact on you and your kin has to be diminished or neglected. At this time, feedback is very important, and you have to accept all constructive criticism. Finally, get it rolling and never look back.
Bet this rock is younger than Mick Jagger.
"OK, but how this will help me to get rid of my crisis?" - You say. Well, what's written here is that crises exists only on our heads and the only way to get rid of them, is by embracing an adaptive mentality. Done? Let's move on.
Get rid of the dip, and make the most of the hip
This works on a number of levels: If your surroundings, finances or neighborhood securities are crumbling, may as well invest on improving your resources, meaning you have to figure what it is affecting them, to help its recovery or to maintain its value.
On hindsight, this wasn't a bright investing moment.
You can use any profit to reinvest on tried and tested ways to keep your money. If you are tired of getting your lifetime savings wasted by the inflationary trend of your currency, you could try investing on foreign currencies, maybe get some stocks, or even crypto! (Bitcoin has been around for 10 years already without any hack on its ledger - that's as old as startups like Uber)
If you trust these guys, you may as well trust on crypto.
If you prefer tangible options, you could invest on precious metals, but did you know less precious commodities could get similar or better interest? Metals like copper and nickel are having similar or better yearly runs than gold right now. You just have to follow industry trends, to get the hang of it.
Because let's be clear here: Investing is for those who are willing to keep a good track of their portafolios, resisting the tempation of touching their assets, unless a proper investigation has been done and trends could be predicted. And also, everything is valuable under the right buyer, so better check out your networks.
I don't know why this wheel of Parmesan appeared on the DYOR image search, but it looks good, so let's keep it here.
Use your time wisely
So, you are pretty ecstatic about making this change on your life and you want to preach it to the world, right? Well, the best way to get people believe in you is to show them how it worked out, because nothing will convince more than succeeding on a calculated risk.
You, after forcing your lifestyle onto others.
So, let's get the work done! First of all, try to organize all your efforts for a year in order to set small weekly goals in order to reach bigger quarterly accomplishments. But let's do it in a realistic way - most often people don't accomplish their goals because either they overestimate their own capabilities or they don't keep a track of their own actions, two key things to consider while planning.
After accomplishing this, now you have to calculate how much time you need to invest to get the stuff done. For most people, schedules over 14 hours a day are unsustainable (unless they're willing to give up their health), so it's advisable to plan daily activities in a 9+5 fashion: 9 hours to do everything that you planned, and 5 to do all the things you didn't. One thing to keep in mind: Nothing is sacred except for the basic needs - When I began planning this way, I learned that my job was too far away from where I lived and that I was investing 15 hours daily to get roughly the same income from my home based activities, so I decided to work at home, leaving me enough free time to make more creative stuff.
I fear for the RAM memory of this computer.
Support your local farmers
Well, now that we have found free time and reviewed our incomes, a good thing to do next is to secure closer sources of food. We all would love to get avocados year round on Europe or eat lobster on the tropics, but such luxuries come at a high price and rough times hit the worst for those who rely on such unsustainable behavior.
May as well do this.
So, a good thing to do is to buy your food based on closeness, shelving length, and how many days does it take to get consumed. Also, it's clever to keep it balanced, because relying only on celery or snack cakes for all your meals just doesn't cut it, even if your neighbor gives it for free next door.
Sure, these may last forever, but I bet you'd be spilling your guts after three days.
So, is advisable to make trips around your town or city to check their produce and base your diet on that. Of course, you could pick other types of food, but you can't rely on these for harsh times, as it'll most surely become scarce later.
Every debt must go on short-term
One can be tempted to spend the most when times turn hard, often accepting long-term credits with heavy compound interests. Sadly though, this kind of debt often leads to bankruptcy and impoverishment, as most people can't find a way to get rid of it later.
May as well do this again.
The deal with credits is they only should be used to support investments, and those should be reliable enough to return the whole ordeal. If nothing supports your credit, you shouldn't count on it for more than a month or two, as your real purchasing power comes from your account's income without any resources you need to live, and about these...
Basic resources are sacred
There are six basic things modern people need to get things going: Water, food, sleep, electricity, a computer, and internet. Not being able to secure any of these will put you on a huge disadvantage form the rest of the civilized world, so one has to ensure all of those can be fulfilled.
Or else these kids will grow up without calling you names amidst a raid.
So, plan accordingly, and consider the lack of any of these, your wake up call to move to another place.
Well, this came closer than I thought...
It's because, as previously said, crisis doesn't exist as such. Life is a continuous process of adaptation, and we're here to enjoy the most of it. So, now let's keep going and get stuff done! The world is waiting for you.
His food doesn't grow on trees.