By Tim Murray

Yes, you too can be optimistic and successful in this Post-Apocalyptic World!

Having trouble coping with the collapse of our civilization?

Has terrorism, biological, chemical and nuclear war ruined your day?

Has the die-off of your friends, loved ones and 6.99 billion other people gotcha down?

Has the fact that you are now living in Cormac McCarthy’s nightmare (“The Road”) made you depressed because you refused to see it coming two decades ago and that as a consequence you might end up on somebody’s menu?

Has the fact that you were complicit in these events by imbibing the idiot techno-optimism of the green movement made you wracked with guilt and moral culpability?

Has the thought that your gullibility made you really believe that there were “alternative” energy solutions to the increasing shortfall of non-renewable resources that enabled our profligate lifestyle, that we could continue to grow our numbers and our appetite and offset the negative impacts with cosmetic green lifestyle changes? Are you kicking yourself because you were one of those fools who believed that we could “de-couple” growth from environmental consequences?

Has the shame of buying into the “It’s not how many of us there are but how we live” catechism become too much for you?

Has the memory of contributing so much time, money and energy into the pointless quest to reduce your personal footprint while not addressing the population growth that wiped out those gains filled you with paralyzing remorse?

Has the fact that instead of adopting a child, you choose to add another to the 350,000 that were born every day come back to haunt you? Are you guilty that as the economic pie was shrinking you brought another diner to the table? Does it still hurt to remember that you channelled your efforts and resources to environmental organizations that ignored population growth rather than support organizations dedicated to fighting it?

If so, you are not alone.

But guilt, shame, remorse and regret won’t make amends for your criminally irresponsible choices and stupidity. These are useless emotions. Civilization is history. It’s done. It is time to move on. Time to set positive goals. So you live in toxic waste dump, with no visible plant life or fauna---- and no marine biota either---- a planet ruined by our temporary flirtation with industrialism and agriculture. So what? Why should that be an impediment to a life of self-actualization and personal fulfillment? Why should the lack of nutrition, shoes, clothing, housing, books, art, literature, music, science, and good health hold you back? Why should you let things that are “out there” affect what is “inside” you? Life is what YOU make it. Your reality can be anything that you PERCEIVE it to be! Marx was wrong and Hegel was right! We are moved by ideas, not by the material world.

With positive visualization, you can imagine yourself to be the exemplary hunter-gatherer that you have the potential to become. And it doesn’t have to happen all at once. The goal is to make one adjustment. Just one adjustment, one step toward this new lifestyle—today--- and then be content with it. Then you can make that ‘little’ accomplishment the springboard to the next adjustment. And so on and so forth. Put a string of days like that together and presto!--- in just 6 months you will look back and say, “Wow! I can’t believe I got this far! After the holocaust I thought I would spend the rest of my numbered days as a starving marauder and cannibal, but now look at me! I may be a filthy shadow of my former self but I’m getting by. One day at a time. The sky is the limit!”

I am living proof that you can survive damn near everything, pick yourself up and move forward.

If I can do it, so can you!

For the promise of just one meal, you can send away for one of my guest campfire lectures, scheduled this nuclear winter, as I tour your region on foot pushing my shopping cart of tattered bedding and odds and ends. For more information please get in touch with someone at my lean-to shelter where Beverly Hills used to be.

Best regards,
Tony Robbins, Director
Amory Lovins School Of Delusional Thinking

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By Tim Murray an environmental writer living on Quadra Island, British Columbia. This article was originally posted at: http://witsendnj.blogspot.com/2011/08/still-positive-after-all-these-years-by.html