crisis

Fear Of Fragmentation

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(This column is posted at www.StevenSavage.com and Steve’s Tumblr.  Find out more at my newsletter.)

Right now it’s a challenging time for many of us. Politics is a nightmare. Wages are stagnant and the inevitable recession looms while US economic policy is made by tantrum. The planet is heating up. Medical care costs skyrocket.

It’s also a challenging time for people I know, and doubtlessly you’re in the same boat. I get it.

I’ve got several friends and family dealing with medical issues.

Other are coping with layoffs and challenges of finding work.

Still others live in places that are being hit or will be hit by climate changes.

And of course, several people fit one or more category. You’re also probably nodding your head, if not trying to cope with sudden anxiety from reading this. We know something is really messed up.

This is something we rarely talk about. It’s not just that our travails of today hurt us or hurt people, they hurt the connections we’ve built. They hurt friends and family and groups and clubs because these stresses on people stress the social bonds we have. It’s hard to keep it all together when everything else is coming apart.

Again, you’ve probably been there. Sorry. And, yes, with climate change it’s going to be worse as we wonder if our friends in Florida will be flooded or our family in Arizona will have their AC crash from overload.

I think it’s up to us to work hard to hold our friends and family and groups together as we face a much more challenging world. We’ll need to stay in touch, back each other up, and help each other out. Then again, that’s what our social structures are for, and man are we going to need them because they are the only thing that’s going to let us get through these times.

So let’s get ready. The world is changing – and not for the better in many ways. We’ve got to survive the change so we can change it back – and not be alone.

So connect with chat. Send text messages. Do a newsletter. Cool someone a meal. Lend them some cash. Do your part to keep it all together.

Steven Savage

The Grind

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"Any idiot can face a crisis – it's day to day living that wears you out." – Anton Checkov.

The above quote sums up one of the secrets of success – and one of the reasons for failure – in people's lives.

First, just because you can deal with a crisis does not mean you can deal with non-crisis issues.  You can rally your energies in the face of a crisis that's great – then again so can many of us, as adrenaline is a wonderful motivator.  In fact I find a surprising amount of people do well in a crisis (often better than they think).

However, dealing with crises is only part of life, and (hopefully) a small part of it.  Dealing with crises is important to survival, but crisis management rarely builds anything.

That's why the day to day living, the daily grind, is the thing you really have to cope with.

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