“Let us do something, while we have the chance! It is not every day that we are needed. Not indeed that we personally are needed. Others would meet the case equally well, if not better. To all mankind they were addressed, those cries for help still ringing in our ears! But at this place, at this moment of time, all mankind is us, whether we like it or not. Let us make the most of it, before it is too late! Let us represent worthily for one the foul brood to which a cruel fate consigned us! What do you say? It is true that when with folded arms we weigh the pros and cons we are no less a credit to our species. The tiger bounds to the help of his congeners without the least reflexion, or else he slinks away into the depths of the thickets. But that is not the question. What are we doing here, that is the question. And we are blessed in this, that we happen to know the answer. Yes, in the immense confusion one thing alone is clear. We are waiting for Godot to come -- ”
For the better part of the last two decades, I have been waiting for the collapse. In fact, back in those early days, I was pretty sure that my daughters would never need to learn to drive a car, because cars would not be obsolete by the time they reached their teen years. When I started my first blog, my youngest was not even school-aged, yet. When I published my first book, she was 10.
She is an adult, now, and not only has she learned to drive, but she's also an auto mechanic and she recently purchased her second sports car. Cars are still very much a part of our American lifestyle - much to my dismay.
In 2020, it happened, and I felt like I'd been holding my breath, waiting for that proverbial "other shoe" to drop. A pandemic. Shortages of food and supplies. Extreme weather events. Job losses and business closures. All we needed was an EMP and for the grid to go down.
As a prepper, I thought I was watching what I had been predicting, and I was waiting for when my freezer died, and I needed to pressure can all of the beef and chicken over a fire out in the yard.
The folks in the prepper world didn't make things any easier, either. Headlines that warn us about the "coming collapse" (which J.H. Kunstler predicted would be a very long, SLOW process sixteen years ago), resource shortages, and civil unrest keep us on that edge of worry.
Don't get me wrong. I'm sure I've been guilty of sounding the clarion call on an occasion or ... many. My book, Surviving the Apocalypse in the Suburbs, is exactly that type of tome - a warning about what's on the horizon, and a call to action - Do This and This and That to "get ready."
The problem is that I have been getting ready for so long, it wore me out. I know, for me, during the Pandemic was particularly anxiety inducing to the point that I was rendered impuissant. I found that I had no motivation to do much of anything for most of the year, and I spent the better part of the first ten months just trying to make it through the day until I could make dinner, have a glass of wine, and go to bed - where I lay awake with worry into the wee hours.
There were things I could have been doing. There are always projects, but I just couldn't get past myself for long enough to do any of them.
The turning point, for me, came when a very dear loved one told me that I was just always angry, and I realized that I was pissed off that the end of the world hadn't happened yet, and that we were still muddling through our typical American Life, only with so many (and often ridiculous) fear-based restrictions and reactions to what was happening in the greater world.
I am reminded of Samuel Beckett's play, Waiting for Godot, which is a perfect example of how we had been living for way too long. We're waiting and waiting and waiting.
And for me, especially that year, that waiting was very much like Vladimir and Estragon. I was just waiting. Not doing.
And that's not who I am.
Even my book is about actively doing SOMETHING. It's twenty-one days of doing stuff to your home and to your life and to your psyche so that when the SHTF, you will be prepared for the worst in all ways there are to prepare.
I submit, though, that the worst is not an EMP, but the paralysis of apathy that gripped us during the Pandemic, and really, in a lot of ways, still has its bony fingers around our necks.
So, when my very dear loved one told me that I was just always angry, I had to take stock, and I realized that I was, indeed, angry, because I was waiting ... waiting ....
In the immortal words of Inigo Montoya at the top of the Cliffs of Insanity, when he is waiting for the "Man in Black" to reach the top: I hate waiting.
But usually, when I wait, I am doing something. In the doctor's waiting room, I was reading. When my daughters were young, we would play games, like I Spy. But we didn't just sit idly and quietly waiting. We did something to pass the time.
And I realized that what I needed to do was to stop waiting and start doing.
I started a list of 100 Things I Can Do to Stop Waiting.
Some of them are regular activities - like household tasks (sweeping and cleaning the bathrooms) to keep me busy.
Some of them are ongoing - like knitting and repairing clothes.
A few of the things on the list are one-time projects - like rebuilding the deck off the back of my house, which I have already done, with the help of my daughter, who owns her own power tools ... and knows how to use them.
The danger in waiting, as I discovered first hand, is the apathy that comes along with it. After so much time, we just stop caring, and as a prepper - nay, as a person - not caring is a terrible way to live and is a sure way to not survive in the face of extreme circumstances.
If, like me, you found that you have been waiting, I encourage you to start your own list, and instead of idly waiting for something to happen:
- Paint a room.
- Find a favorite vlogger (I like Do It on a Dime) and get some inspiration for small space, low-cost, dollar store storage solutions for your bathroom ... and then, do them.
- Darn socks.
- Make lunch bags out of feed sacks.
- Write a short story.
- Build a shelf for your kitchen counter to increase storage.
- Plan and plant a garden.
- Make a braided rug.
- Knit some squares.
- Make a blanket from knit squares.
- Read a book.
- Write an article about something that's important to you.
- Submit your article to a newspaper or magazine for publication.
- Bake some cookies
- Make sauerkraut
Or 85 other things that are much better than sitting for hours scrolling through FB, and just getting angrier and angrier with each swipe.
Godot may still come. We may still have some massive TEOTWAWKI event, and it may even happen sooner than we know. If I've learned anything in my decades as a blogger and a prepper, it's that there is always that looming catastrophic event that will plunge us into deep, dark, despair. The challenge is to not give into that despair and allow it to make us impotent, but rather to design our lives so that there's something to do that will also do something for us.
As I near my sixth decade on this earth, my goal will be to stop waiting, and embrace doing something to improve my life, and those who share it.
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