Resilience

(Written on 14^th January 2013)

I wanted to start a blog about my journey to becoming more resilient. It seems a stupid thing for me to do, when I haven’t read many blogs let alone commented on them, but I see it as a way of keeping a journal and tracking my progress, along with commenting on the global state of affairs. I’m not sure anyone will be interested in reading it, but if it inspires anyone to take a more sustainable path, or to prepare for the collapse of our current systems, then I would love to hear from you.

To start the New Year the World Economic Forum released its ‘Global Risks 2013’ report, which you can download from http://www.weforum.org/ . I found it interesting reading, though not very light-hearted. Financial risks dominate the top spots for ‘likelihood to occur within the next 10 years’ and ‘impact’, but ‘Rising greenhouse gas emissions’ and ‘Failure of climate change adaption’ featured prominently too. Peak Oil isn’t directly mentioned, although rising energy and food prices is given a fair amount of weight.

The report talks about the need for Resilience, ‘the ability to withstand, adapt and recover from shocks’. Where a risk is difficult to predict and to plan for, then the best preparation is to increase Resilience. It’s about having some spare capacity and the skills to be adaptable, and applies on an individual basis, as well as for communities, businesses and countries.

Resilience is about being knocked down but having the strength to get back up. It does seem to me to be ingrained in human nature. I mean if your house is flooded or you get made redundant, how many people would just lie down and say ‘I can’t go on anymore’? People find a way to cope, a way to survive, even in the most dire situations. It’s like the weeds in my garden, they want to live and grow so badly that nothing will stop them trying to spring up again. That’s us. You can’t write off our future because there is always a way to adapt and cope with whatever is thrown your way.

 

Judy