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The longer all this goes on, the harder it is to stay on point, remaining focused and keeping preparation efforts moving forwards.

Some of you have done all the preparing you plan to do, and find that “keeping abreast” of all the discouraging news comes at a price, and have wisely decided to limit your intake of new news to preserve your happiness and in the interest of preserving your energy for other important matters. I get it.

For everybody else, this is all dragging on for much too long. Can’t we just get on with things already? How much more information do we really need that it’s time to stop our (self) harmful behavior, and begin doing a host of other entirely new, constructive and necessary things?

For example, stop attempting to grow at any cost. And begin investing in regenerative and life-supporting activities.

However, for many, the collapse has already arrived. It just hasn’t been called that yet in the newspapers and on TV, so people just lack the proper frame of reference. It’s really a matter of perspective.

For the people who are already struggling under mountains of student debt, or homeless, or unable to afford medical care, the collapse has already begun. For many, opportunities to advance have already evaporated; and they're stuck in a slow, steady, out-of-control decent into a future of "less".

What do we predict a long emergency style collapse will look like? It arrives with a slow erosion of dreams, a steady decline in the ability of the marginal bottom-of -the-monetary-pyramid players to survive.

In other words, it will look like this…