How to Cope in The Time of Extinction

It is easy to feel overwhelmed  or in a state of panic considering all the bad news pouring in about the state of the world.

Recently, World Wildlife Fund launched their annual Living Planet Report. According to the report, vertebrates (animals with backbones) have declined by 60 per cent in 40 years.

We cannot survive without nature, and we are part of it, whether we live on Greenland or in a skyscraper in a mega city.  Nature is not something “out there”. 

We have created all these problems, and we need to do redress them, if we want to survive.

If we made every other specie on this planet extinct, we would likely go under, too.  And even if we were able to make food, oxygen and water in laboratories: that would not be a planet most of us would want to live on.

Mother Earth will survive though, and new species will evolve. She has survived worse calamities than homo sapiens.

Oftentimes, I just want to stay in bed, where I feel safe and can ignore the world outside (as long as I have food in the fridge, water is running). Or just have as much fun as I possibly can before the wild fires, the next plague, old age or whatever comes to tell me that time is up.

During these fits of depression and overwhelm I am not able to tell myself or listen to any “stand up and fight, we can do this” chants.

My best coping strategy 

To become egoistic. Not in the usual sense, turning into an erratic consumer or stop caring about others.

Instead, I tell myself that this “the world is going under” thinking is not doing me any good. Even if we do go extinct.

I try to focus on the best thing I can do for myself, the tiny bit of time I have on this planet.

And the best thing I can do for myself is to try and be a good, kind and decent person. My recycling, work and engagements for others abroad or at home will perhaps not save us ( no signs of it  yet). But I feel so much better doing those things.

And I will enjoy nature, what is left of it, as much as I possibly can.

Be a bit more grateful to the birds, bees and flowers struggling to survive, with no salary or annual bonuses in sight.

I will do my best to give myself what I truly need, no matter the outcome. People have to change, we all need to grow up. But instead of staying frustrated, I will advocate for maturity in a better way. For instance, through writing this blog, and to work on extending this concept to a wider maturity movement.

I will focus less on changing the world.  Because, that often leads to outbursts about all the stupid human beings around me. With one exception, of course. It does not do me any good.