[Tikib]

Well my life is rapidly coming to an end now. As employment is getting impossible to find.

I envy those who have doomsteads as they might survive as we head from civilization to mad max over the next couple of years. I am convinced their will be a very hard crash soon.

If you do have a doomstead make sure you have nearby friends and large weapon stocks.

[SeaGypsy]

You are British, under 30 & some work skills correct? Suggestion: get a 12 month working holiday visa & get to northern or western Australia. My work has several permanent staff who started with 6 months then were sponsored for a working residence visa. Darwin has 4.5% unemployment officially with real unemployment about 1.5%. Hunt around for tickets via Singapore, all up you could get here with visa for under GBP1K. Never surrender brother, where life is hope.

[WildRose]

Goodness, it's way too early to give up. You may look back a couple years from now with the realization that a couple of good years got away from you.

I can't speak for the UK at all, but I know in Alberta, Canada, if you can drive a forklift you'll have a permanent job. From spring through fall, you can make a fairly decent coin doing landscaping, just need to learn how to operate walk-behind lawnmowers and leaf-blowers (and the company will teach you). During the winter you could do snow removal. Just a couple suggestions.

[Sixstrings]

Well my life is rapidly coming to an end now.

How is your life coming to an end? Unless you just got a cancer diagnoses or something, then really that's not anything to say lightly.

Just because it's hard to find a job? "Life is coming to an end?" I don't buy it. There's got to be a job somewhere, in the the British Isles. Plus they have benefits and are a lot easier on the poor than we are in the US. In the UK, everybody gets a council house or something. In the USA, we've got a lot of people sleeping in the parking lot outside the Salvation Army because there aren't enough cots inside, and I was was hearing someone talk about it and apparently a cot for the night is $10 so a total homeless broke person just has to sleep outside the door, and then there's a soup kitchen and some facilities open during the day without charge. They can't sleep anywhere else in town, or they get cited for loitering and public sleeping laws.

Section 8 housing has like a five year waiting list. I presume you aren't homeless, Tikib? If not, you're not so bad off, really. Look at a place like India and the extreme rank horrible, cripples on the street wearing rags dirty poverty. Even Indians that have homes and jobs, HALF of THE ENTIRE NATION has no toilet access! They literally go in the street!

Do you have access to a toilet? Well right there, your life is better than 500 millions Indians.

Happiness is relative, of course. Ironically, a lot of the homeless I talk about, are actually happy in a way. It's like there's the normal people town I live in, and there's this mirror mirror street people town. They all know each other. They facebook, and all have cell phones. At least they have community -- whereas a millionaire may be so lonely and depressed in his gated community that he thinks his life is over, and end it.

Really depression and misery know no social class or income level, and plenty of rich folk think the end is here and they end it with millions in the bank.

If you are depressed -- then get some help, GET SOME COMMUNITY, get around some PEOPLE. If the people you have are the ones making you feel like crap and depressing you, then get away from them and find some new ones but get yourself out of a state of mind where you're saying your life is over. (I assume you were being metaphoric anyway, but just saying)

There's a poster on this forum that has said he has MS. Tikib, if you don't have MS then you've got nothing to ever complain about, I'm sorry.

If you're under 30 with decent health and a good back, then seriously, what is there to complain about.

A key to life, sometimes, is perseverance and "keep calm and carry on" and keep your nose to a grindstone, and suffer through some misery with bulldog determination. What doesn't kill you only makes you stronger. Step by step, make progress. The tortoises are the ones that win the races, in the long run. There are many strategies to persue, one could go to Australia for work, or one could work a job they hate there in the UK but just keep going to it every day.

Doesn't have to be a doomstead. Find some other property you could buy, become a land owner or home owner (if you're not already). Just ownership adds responsibility and grounds a person. Same as having kids, just being responsible for someone else can take your mind off how much you are doomed or whatever.

(I can't remember if you posted before, and may have mentioned you have some disabilities. Get a social worker, get a case manager, start going to a job center, whatever ones situation you have to DO SOMETHING and plug forward every day)

P.S. Happiness really is relative. It's not about money. People can go into a tailspin just from what they have falling apart all around them. If you're strong then you can still make it even if everything is crashing, you just have to rebuild even if it's not what you always had in mind for your life. The strong have to make it through the storm to rebuild something after.

Or, people "have it all," and are still unhappy. The most miserable I've ever been in my life, was when I technically had the best job I've ever had and made the most money. It just hit me one day, sitting in that cubicle "so this is my life? this is all there is now? this computer screen, this cubicle, 10 hours a day and then I've got 3 days off to sit around think about how much I don't like my work?"

Now I look back at way back then, and wonder what the hell was wrong with me. At least I had 3 days off a week, that alone is rare, and I had great vacation time. I honestly don't know what was wrong with me, the money was great, I just hated the work. If I had that one to do over again I would have appreciated it more and maneuvered myself to another department where I wouldn't have been stuck doing that bean counting in a cubicle all day. Another tip: do a myers briggs test online and learn what your personality type is, and then search career fields for that, and find out what work is actually suited to you.

Everyone must learn their lessons in life, and go through the same sh*t, and existential crises, and life changes and dicorces and relationships ending and all of that, everyone's got their sh*t to deal with and their problems and existential angst, regardless of income level, or how great their life may seem on the surface.

[SeaGypsy]

Depression is a life threatening illness. It is more common than any other disease in this category. Many of us here have been through feelings like tik describes. Keep breathing & reach out.

[Newfie]

Depression is a life threatening illness. It is more common than any other disease in this category. Many of us here have been through feelings like tik describes. Keep breathing & reach out.

Yeah, good advice.

[ennui2]

Suicide is, unfortunately, a clear and present danger if you wrestle with doomer issues too much and for too long without someohow making peace with it. That's what happened to Mike Ruppert. It could happen to anyone.

[Sixstrings]

Just to note, the OP didn't say he is depressed, and I didn't mean to suggest that.

As far as doomer issues go, it's just not rationally true that anyone's future has to be bleak.

The economy may actually finally be on the upswing. Forecasts are good for the US in 2015, and probably UK as well. Trends are very long term. There may actually be brighter days ahead finally, economic history and theory will pan out after all, that depressions do end and things do get better.

[SeaGypsy]

The OP is depressed 6.

[Quinny]

6 - Dyspraxia is a terrible disease to deal with, and the crack down on benefits in the UK is causing major problems for 1000's of people who are being forced to rely on foodbanks to survive. Your rose coloured glasses approach view of life in the UK doesn't reflect what is happening on the ground. A friend of mine was sanctioned for not 'applying' for 50+ jobs per week when anyone with a brain can see this isn't practical. He had previously been told to focus on quality by another advisor. This left him with zero income and living off foodbanks. His bills were still racking up though as his housing benefit was also stopped.

Tikib I understand how you feel I had similar thoughts a few years ago when I discovered PO and life presented me with some difficult challenges. I've ended up moving abroad, powering down and in many ways I'm happier than ever. I don't know where you are in the UK, but I'm back there next week if you PM me, I'll do all I can to help.

[Sixstrings]

6 - Dyspraxia is a terrible disease to deal with, and the crack down on benefits in the UK is causing major problems for 1000's of people who are being forced to rely on foodbanks to survive. Your rose coloured glasses approach view of life in the UK doesn't reflect what is happening on the ground.

Well I'm just saying Quinn, there are 500 million people -- that's half a billion with a b -- in India who do not even have a toilet to use and literally go in the street.

I'm just saying it could be worse. It's worse in the USA, or my part of it anyway. There's no kind of help for people. There is no "dole" at all. There is only unemployment comp, which people only got if they were laid off, if an employer can think up any "cause" then voila no benefits, no soup for you. Obviously, any boss can find a "cause," right?

5 year waiting list for housing assistance. No welfare in the US since Clinton almost 20 years ago, nothing. The down on their luck have literally nothing in the US, they literally sleep on the street. In my area that means the salvation army parking lot, because there are ordinances against being homeless in public.

There are no "foodbanks" in my area. There's one that is open ONE time per week and people are only allowed to go once per month at that, and they give people just one small bag with junk in it, like maybe a fruit cup and two ramen packs. It's hilarious. I only know about these things because there's so many poor people around me, I do sort of know a few of them that have used these services.

They can get foodstamps though, if they've got zero income and can give some kind of address, so that's like $200 a month for food (I think). They can get like $600 a month for SSI if they can think up some disability and that takes a year or two to go through. I'm just saying Quinn, it's worse in the USA, and it's a lot worse in India and other places.

I sure hope the economy gets better in '15, somehow. I gotta tell ya, every time I'm approached in public out doing my shopping or whatever -- it's for panhandling. It really bothers me. I'm on a budget, I don't have any extra money. I get panhandled so much that I've actually got a complex now and attitude with any stranger coming up to me in public, it's that bad.

So lately I drive like 20 minutes out of my way just to get to the better part of town so I can breath a bit easier. And even then -- the market has poles on the shopping carts now, preventing you from taking the cart out to your car -- poles prevent the carts from passing through the door -- because "so many people were stealing the shopping carts."

[GregT]

"So lately I drive like 20 minutes out of my way just to get to the better part of town so I can breath a bit easier."

So what are you going to do when you can no longer 'drive like 20 minutes out of your way'? What will you do when you are the 'part of town' that others go out of their way to avoid so that they can 'breath a bit easier'? Do you believe that you are exempt? That it can't happen to you?

Think again 6.

[beamofthewave]

quinny, you are a good man.

[Tikib]

Yea quinny I really appreciate the offer. I am not sure what you can do to help me with the literal end of the world but thanks.

I am just another lost.soul who can't psychologically cope.

[SeaGypsy]

Quinn has some great contacts in organics & aquaculture. Mate it sucks to feel that way, but really you need to get it that what you are going through is normal reaction to abnormal realization. Find something positive to do with whatever time you have left. It is the end, of ignorance, your life will go on much longer than it seems right now.

[Newfie]

Yea quinny I really appreciate the offer. I am not sure what you can do to help me with the literal end of the world but thanks.

I am just another lost.soul who can't psychologically cope.

If you let the reality of our situation wash over you, then it is almost inevitable that you become depressed and psychologically stressed. It gets to me that's for sure.

But there are coping mechanisims. Keep you eyes forward, make plans, keep busy, do things. Prepare yourself in many ways.

Remember, no here or anywhere else knows the timeline how things will unravel. It is possible that you will lead a fairly "normal" life. It is likely you will lead a life no worse than what you would have experienced 200 years ago. That ain't so bad.

[Tikib]

Newfie you are very emotionally stable and I have a lot of respect for that. Me I am one of those people who has never really accepted death and so accepting the death of society etc is even more hard.

I don't really care that I am getting upset and stressed it won't matter in 6 months when I am starving or after I am dead.

[SeaGypsy]

Can you please rationalise why you have 6 months before you are starving or dead? You are not an ostracized member of some wilderness tribe, doomed to be eaten by hippos or lions or boiled alive by your neighbours. Even a soup kitchen squatters life with basic social security & medicaid puts you out of the 'starving to death' category. So basically you are nuts & need help. Any decent doctor would give you sickness benefit certification based on your mental & emotional state. Whinging here isn't doing you good.

[Tikib]

Look at gails off the cliff graph. I live in an overpopulated country with no ff resources. One day I am going to goto the shop and there won't be any food in it.

[Scrub Puller]

Yair . . . Tikib.

I live in an overpopulated country with no ff resources. One day I am going to goto the shop and there won't be any food in it.

Bloody hell mate things aren't that bad surely?

I was born in Suffolk and after a lifetime (almost) of living in my beloved Australia visions of the English country side on television bring tears to my eyes and I am very much aware that the blood of an English man still courses (or these days trickles) through my veins.

Even though you say the country is overpopulated I am constantly amazed at how beautiful and empty the English country side appears to be . . . get out of the city and set out to learn some earth skills . . . learn to understand the ebb and flow of seasons and how to run an allotment and how to grow some food.

You have access to some device or you wouldn't be posting here . . . use it to contact like minded people who are doing their thing, a few small steps to positivity can make a huge difference to your life.

Hang in there and keep us posted.

All the best and Cheers.