Surviving Bad Times – the Personal Empowerments Needed for Keeping You Safe

This article describes the personal empowerments needed for surviving bad times. These ideas can help keep you safe. They may even help you prosper, under the right conditions.

Overcoming your fear

You can't do much to help yourself if you are frozen by fear. Your fear is mainly caused by the unknown. The information in this article explains various choices available. By knowing about your possibilities, you can bring your likely future into focus. This should help you set your fear aside. You need to banish fear in order to make logical decisions and take bold actions. Get rid of your fear! It cannot help you. It can only get in your way.
Keep in mind that certain people were able to build successful new business firms during the Great Depression . They conquered any fears they had and took decisive action under adverse circumstances.

Reviewing your situation

After getting rid of any fears, the next step is to evaluate your current circumstances. This will help in making good decisions about your future. You must be realistic in your review. I suggest that you concern yourself with three matters -- responsibilities, resources, and possible threats. Describe these matters on paper. You cannot review your true situation as long as it remains only doubts and fears swirling around in your mind.

Your responsibilities mainly concerned your immediate family. They also may include other family members, employers, creditors, and pets . Some of the things you feel responsible for may not really be your problem. You cannot carry the whole world on your shoulders. Other people may just have to fend for themselves.

Your resources include your tangible assets -- such as cash, clothing, vehicles, tools and equipment, real estate, household goods, and other belongings. Resources also include intangible assets -- such as your education, experiences, skills, and self-reliance. Your resources may also include both tangible and intangible assets of your family and friends that may be available to you. A desirable attitude to develop is the willingness to do whatever is required under the circumstances.

Possible threats may not be as easy to identify. Besides any obvious threats, there may be any number of contingent threats. These things may or may not happen. For example, Social Security benefits and unemployment benefits may be cut off if the various governments encounter serious financial difficulties. Your friendly neighbor may become desperate and become a threat to you or your family . Consider what has happened in the past and in other places under similar conditions. Consider also that people today may not be as responsible and self-reliant as in the past. (Don't write down more than four threats, that is enough to consider.)

After describing these three matters on paper, you can review them and get a clearer understanding of your situation. Then you can decide what future actions are possible and desirable for you and your family .

Surviving under present conditions

You need to become self-reliant. Don't depend on the government for help! You may have to either lower your cost of living or find some way to have more money. You (or some other family member) could get a part-time job. Perhaps someone in the family could do odd jobs or perform some services for extra money. If you are currently employed, try to become more essential so you aren't as likely to be fired.

Here are some other ideas:

* Find a less expensive home to rent
* Eliminate luxuries or other nonessential expenses
* Use public transportation
* Buy a used car instead of a new car
* Purchase only those things that provide real and lasting value
* Learn new habits that use less money or no money at all
* Don't buy seldom-used items, instead rent or borrow

Surviving if things get worse

You may have to relocate. Join a group of like-minded people who are self-reliant. There usually is more safety in a group. A group of people with different abilities and resources, but similar attitudes and beliefs, can be a safe haven. Some people in the group may have things they aren't using, but could be useful for others.

If nothing else, get to know your neighbors. Start to interact more with them. For example, you could throw a block party or exchange favors. Do some people's beliefs scare you? Do some people keep borrowing things but never pay them back? These are people to avoid when things get worse.

Final thoughts

Some people have survived under extreme conditions where other people have perished. Example would be longtime survivors in a concentration camp. How did they survive? I think they had the will to survive, whereas other people just gave up. Become bold and courageous -- become a survivor!