Tag Archives: hope

Society Collapse – Personal Collapse?

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“Collapse” by Jared Diamond makes for very interesting reading about the factors that led to the collapse of many ancient and modern societies. Some of his insights are very pertinent to running our own lives successfully.

Success or Failure?

As a society we make choices that determine whether we will succeed rather than fail. Diamond basically narrows these choices down to two that seem to have been crucial in tipping the outcome of the society towards success or failure.  These two choices are: long-term planning and a willingness to reconsider core values.

Short-term Planning

A major contributing  factor in society collapse is deforestation. Third World countries allow First World logging companies to deforest their lands because it brings in money and people are able to put food on the table. These short term ‘benefits’ cause a disastrous situation in the long-term as deforestation has ripple effects that put the society in a worse state than when they started.

  • Personal Lesson No. 1 Let go of immediate gratification in favor of long-term planning.

Core Values

The Greenland Norse (AD 1000) did not survive because they hung onto their core identity of being a European pastoral society. Trying to farm cattle in Greenland proved to be a disaster. They would have survived if they had learnt survival lessons from the Inuits.

On the other hand, Tikopia Islanders survived because they eliminated ecologically destructive pigs, even though pigs were their largest domestic animal and a status symbol.

  • Personal Lesson No. 2. It’s really pig-headed to hold onto core values that will ultimately lead to your (or the society’s) downfall.

Some more personal lessons

Long term planning

Diamond refers to “90-day thinking” which involves only focusing on issues likely to blow up in a crisis within the next 90 days. Think ahead. You are the author of your life so ask yourself what you want in the future. And then make a long term plan. A longer-term plan takes you out of short-term reactive decision-making. Psychologically speaking you won’t deforest the landscape for immediate gain.

  • Personal lesson No. 3 Face your problems. In the words of Jared Diamond, you need “the courage to practice long-term thinking, and to make bold, courageous, anticipatory decisions at a time when problems have become perceptible but before they have reached crisis proportions”. Don’t be like an ostrich, the problem won’t go away by hiding your head in the sand. Deal with your problem early on before it gains momentum and gets out of control.

Core Values

Question your values and ask yourself whether they are valid or not. Our values are learnt from our imperfect parents and imperfect society and many should be discarded. Do you do things because that’s the way your parents did it, without questioning why? That’s how sexism, racism and all those other ism’s get perpetuated in society, all justified by a value that has never been properly thought through: “that’s just the way we do it”.

Thank goodness for those brave souls who down the ages have faced the wrath of the status quo in their pursuit of justice, equality and a better world.

Long-term planning ….
Core values …
Gets one thinking doesn’t it?

Click this link to Amazon to purchase the book Collapse by Jared Diamond


Living a True Life!

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‘I wish I’d been courageous enough to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me’.

This is the most common regret people have as they reach the end of their lives. Isn’t it true that many of us worry excessively about what other people might think about us. How often did we hear parents say ‘don’t do that, what will other people think about you’. No wonder the world abounds with people pleasers! We all want to be accepted and loved, so we behave in a particular way just to get the approval of others.

The stress of being a people pleaser often ends up in depression. Really not surprising, is it? Trying to please everyone is inevitably going to lead straight down the road to failure. You simply can’t be successful living according to someone else’s expectations! To live an authentic life, you have to live a life true to yourself.

Don’t depend on other people for affirmation. Look inside yourself for what is right. Rather seek affirmation from the Lord.

In Jeremiah 17:5-8 (ESV) the Lord tells us why:

“Cursed is the man who trusts in man
and makes flesh his strength,
whose heart turns away from the Lord.
He is like a shrub in the desert,
and shall not see any good come.
He shall dwell in the parched places of the wilderness,
in an uninhabited salt land.

“Blessed is the man who trusts in the Lord,
whose trust is the Lord.
He is like a tree planted by water,
that sends out its roots by the stream,
and does not fear when heat comes,
for its leaves remain green,
and is not anxious in the year of drought,
for it does not cease to bear fruit.”

When you meet the Lord one day he is not going to congratulate you on living a life that others expected of you. He will ask why you didn’t live like the person He made you to be!

 


You have a Bigger Purpose in Life!

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Yesterday evening my family and I went to see the delightfully magical 3D movie ‘Hugo‘. What a treat! Hugo is an orphan living on his own in the clock towers of the Paris railway station. He spends his time fixing things, especially mechanical things that run on cogs and wheels.

A new friend asks him how he manages to live on his own. And he replies something like, ‘I see the earth, the same way as I see a machine. A machine comes with the exact right parts to make it work perfectly. Each part is important and there are no spare parts.’ Despite living in what most people would regard as an extremely hopeless situation, Hugo lives with hope. He knows he isn’t a ‘spare part’.  He is meant to be here on earth, just because he has been created. He knows he has an important part to play, but what it is he has still to find out.

What a lesson for all of us! I’ve sometimes heard very despondent people saying that they’re just wasting oxygen! Each of us is so very important. Just because we are created beings means we have a special place on this planet. When you’re feeling down, or disheartened, just remember how very special you are. You were created with a part to play in the bigger picture of this place, called earth.

A proverb in the Bible says that without vision, man perishes! Guard your self-esteem, believe that you are special, because that belief will affect how you live out your life.