How Much Stress Will Post Peak Oil Cause You? Are You Ready?

Are you ready for the lifestyle changes you will need to make post peak oil? Can you live without a car or truck or even buses? Huh?!?

So, the story goes that as of about 2012, the world’s ability to supply oil will cease to meet the demand for oil. After that point, the cost to bring the oil to market will outclass our ability to pay for it. It seems that the countries that currently export oil will begin hoarding it for their own use and so there will be less and less oil available for the rest of us.

It may seem strange that an article directory that focuses on human development and self-growth would need to carry any articles about the state of the economy. However, the reality is that all the forward strides made by humanity in the last 25-50 years, in terms of personal development, could very well come to a screeching halt, and even regress by decades, if people do not prepare themselves for post-peak-oil life. It could bring new meaning to the need for stress management training.

How dependent on oil are you? Have you ever looked around your home or community and considered how many things, in your world, are fully dependent on oil? Have you ever thought through what you will do if oil is no longer available or even if it is available, what will you do if it is too expensive to buy?

I am sure people are saying that this article is crazy because all the reports show that there is still tons of oil available in the world. We all know that the experts have been saying for years that we still have decades of oil available. Well, a group of experts at http://www.PostPeakLiving.com would beg to differ. They agree that there remains an abundance of oil out there, but the problem begins when you consider the costs of getting the oil out of the ground. For example, a barrel of drilled and pumped oil costs about $10.00 to bring to market, but a barrel of oil from the tar sands costs about $80.00 to bring to market. This will have a huge effect on your pocket book.

Ultimately, you can argue with me or you can do your own research and come to the same conclusions I did. I believe that the new movement in self-growth and personal development, post 2012, is going to be getting ready for post peak oil living and getting back to basics.

People will have to learn new skills and change their expectations and learn to be more flexible and adaptable. We will all have to learn to work together better and be cooperative. We have all spent the last 25 years learning to be independent islands and now we will have to, again, reach out to one other, to rely on each other.

Are you a muller yet? There is a centralized website http://www.transitionUS.org that acts as a hub for all the small, grassroots transition organizations that are popping up all over the world. In my small part of the world, there are already six local community-based transition organizations that have started meeting regularly to generate strategies to ensure that people will be able to access all the help and resources they need to survive post-peak-oil demands and limitations. Is your community mulling yet?

It’s time brush up on your gardening skills, your cooking skills, your food preservation skills and your budgeting skills. You’ll need to learn how to capture rainwater, reuse your greywater and exist without a car or truck. Even the buses may not be able to operate. What’s your transportation plan? Does your community have a car-sharing cooperative or a walking school bus program? Do you own a bicycle? And what about your ability to generate an income? Is there something you know how to make or do that fulfills a basic life necessity? PostPeakLiving.com says that your college or university degree won’t be that useful to you anymore.

There was an old movie from the 1960’s called "Hello Dolly" with Barbra Streisand and Walter Matthau. In the movie, Matthau’s character, Horace Vandergelder, says that a living is made by selling something that people need some of the time and a fortune is made by selling something that people need all the time, everyday of their lives and artists don’t sell anything that anyone needs ever, which is why artists are usually starving. It’s time for us all to become like Horace Vandergelder and figure out something to make and sell that everyone will need to have everyday. We are about to leave the “nice-to-have” economy and we are entering the “need-to-have” economy.

At the very least, it is time to get serious about learning stress management skills because when so many people are forced to make a very large change all at the same time, it is a recipe for a stress disaster. How will you cope? For more information, watch the 3-part video series on PostPeakLiving.com.