Build resilience before it’s needed
Did you ever have regrets for not taking a different route? Starting today, you can avoid future regrets and build a better future for yourself.
“The suffering which is not yet come can and is to be avoided”, said Patanjali some 2,000 years ago. How do we apply this wisdom teaching to our current world with its rapid AI evolution and global instability? Each of us has multiple options available daily to help our future bifurcate in the right direction. Here are a few ideas your future self will be grateful to you to have started today.
Diversify your income streams. Start thinking outside of the box: what resources are available to you? Do you have a piece of land, a spare room you could turn into a source of income? A skill, an activity you enjoy doing and others need? A training to learn a skill you always wanted to do but never found time for? Think of what difference it would make. I opened my first Airbnb two years before my first redundancy at my main job, and by the time it happened, I had over 50 guest reviews, a solid new skillset, a supportive community of other hosts (I am still part of) and a second Airbnb open a few months before. It doesn’t pay all the bills, but it brought be 25K extra cash last year with minimal investment. And I hired a local housekeeper.
Build your local network. When global supply chains crumble, internet is victim to a cascading software crush, or a natural disaster or, God forbid, war hits, your next door neighbours become your immediate source of information, help and even survival, and so do you to them. Get to know them before you need each other’s help. Volunteer to get involved in local events. Become curious about what they are good at, share what you are good at. That local housekeeper I hired introduced me to several local contacts that opened more doors.
Grow your veggies. We are embodied beings with physical needs and it looks to me that with all the dematerialisation of the last decades (and now AI), we tend to forget this simple truth. As some of you know, I recently published my great-grandmother memoirs and what struck me while preparing the manuscript for publishing is this: every time they moved (and they moved a lot with revolution and civil war), the first thing she did was planting a veggie garden. It clearly saved her family from starvation and I owe my very existence to her resilience. Even though most of us are far from growing all our food, we can start small and make incremental progress over years. There are solutions for everyone, even if you live in the city in a small apartment. Start with microgreens!
Build your resilience. Once in the crisis, it’s too late to prepare! But you still can prepare now and it will determine how you will cope (or not) in future. There are age tested techniques like meditation, yoga, tai-chi, qi-gong as well as journalling, chanting or practicing mindfulness and breathing exercices that are free, anyone can use and it’s literally under your nose.
What are you doing to avoid future suffering?
