"How did you go bankrupt?" Two ways. Gradually, then suddenly," novelist and writer Ernest Hemingway wrote in The Sun Also Rises. People keep saying a collapse is coming. It's not. It's already here. You're living in it. So am I. Collapse is not an apocalyptic event. It's what happens when the rules change. It's the slow hustle with nothing to show for it. It's rising rent. It's the consistent rise of your grocery bill. And rising rent.

Collapse is all the little cuts you do to make ends meet. Maybe you've cut subscriptions. Delayed repairs. Or skipped a doctor's visit to avoid the bill. Collapse is when your parents can't retire and your friends can't afford kids. People are falling behind on retirement savings at an alarming rate. For many, retirement isn't a goal. It's a fantasy. Collapse is terrible political decisions. It's tariffs gone wrong. And economic dysfunction we can't control.

The world is not ending.

It's just becoming unrecognisable.

You're not being priced out of life by accident. This is the system working exactly as designed. Extracting every ounce of value from you until there's nothing left. Corporate profits are hitting record highs while wages stagnate. "Home prices have jumped 118% since 1965, while income has only increased by 15%, according to Clever Real Estate. Pew reports that across the years 1958 to 2015, public trust in government at large plunged from 72 to just 19 percent. Most people don't trust their governments to solve anything for them.

I don't.

They won't.

The systemic failure we are experiencing is out of control. 63% of Americans have been living from paycheck to paycheck since September 2022. People are anxious about their futures. Depression is rising. That's collapse. It's systemic. It's uneven. But it's real. We keep waiting for some sort of big systemic collapse. A "before" and "after." But we are already living in it. It's just unevenly distributed.

Collapse is a pattern.

That's what makes it so confusing.

Collapse is not the end of the world. It's the end of the world you grew up in. It's the end of a way of life. The one where hard work paid off. Where you could afford a home on one income. Where the future felt brighter than the past. If your life is harder than it was a yore years back, it's not your fault. You're living through a system that demands more and gives less. Wages haven't kept up with productivity since the 1970s. The average worker produces far more, but gets far less in return (Economic Policy Institute, 2023).

Meanwhile, CEO pay has skyrocketed 1,460% since 1978.

That's collapse, too.

Don't let anyone gaslight you. You're not crazy for thinking things feel worse. They are. But you're not powerless. Stop expecting a clear "before" and "after." And start adapting. Collapse doesn't mean give up. It's a sign to wake up. We don't need false hope. We need to take back control of what you can.

Collapse isn't coming. It's here.

But so are we.

And we're not done yet.

The world isn't ending. It's changing. And not in the way we expect. You're not crazy for feeling like things are falling apart. They are. The collapse isn't coming. You're already living in it. The game you were trained to play (get a job, save, retire) has changed. And most people are still trying to play by the old rules.

Now the bigger question is: What will you do about it?

History's greatest transformations didn't happen during stability. They happened when systems failed, when people had no choice but to innovate. The Industrial Revolution. The rise of the middle class. The digital age. All born from system failures. Stop waiting for rescue. Governments and corporations won't save you. But you can use the pressure to grow stronger. Build parallel personal income systems if you can. Take control of what you can.

Do what you must.

You're the one who gets to decide where you go from here. Charles Darwin was right: "It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent; it is the one most adaptable to change." Transcending collapse is emotional endurance. Protect your soul. Learn how to rest. Create time, energy and attention boundaries. Collapse can isolate you. Build small circles of people you can trust. Improve your economic flexibility. You need to bend without breaking. Don't get stuck in industries in decline. Cut the bloat in your finances.

Know your numbers.

Know your patterns.

And by all means, control your cash flow. Debt is deadly unless used with precision. Be ruthless about what's worth going into debt for. There's a Swedish proverb I like, "He who buys what he does not need steals from himself." Collapse is also about systems failing people. But don't let it make you helpless. Be politically aware. Power isn't always on TV. It's your community. Your network and resilience. Doing what you must means learning how to live when the rules change. And they have changed. Permanently. What's strange is how invisible it can feel.

But you are awake.

And see through it all.

Writer Jiddu Krishnamurti said, "It is no measure of health to be well adjusted to a profoundly sick society." Learn new rules and transcend the old ones that don't work. What worked 10 years ago might kill you now: financially, emotionally, spiritually. Learn high-return skills that will make you indispensable tomorrow. Ownership of tools, skills or a share of a bigger pie that doesn't change is your leverage.

You are not powerless.

You can't control inflation. Or rent. Or policy. But you can become antifragile, stronger under pressure. You can teach your kids different rules. You can build a version of wealth that isn't just money: it's time, skills, health, trust, and mobility. Collapse isn't a cliff. It doesn't show up all at once. It's a slope, and you are already on it. You either slide or you climb. "Start where you are. Use what you have. Do what you can," says tennis player Arthur Ashe. You don't need to have it all figured out.

You just need to live one honest step at a time.

Cut what drains you. Build on everything else that feeds you. Double down on what protects you from systemic failure. And most of all, stay human in a system that's trying to grind that out of you.

No one's coming to save you.

But you're not helpless. You still have agency. You're smarter than the system thinks. You have two options. Keep playing by the old rules, hoping wages will catch up, prices will drop, and the system will save you. Or rewrite the rules for yourself. The Roman Empire didn't fall in a day. It bled out slowly while new power structures grew in its shadow. You're not surviving history. You're writing the next chapter of your life. Adapt, build resilience, and take control of what you can.

As the proverb goes, "When the winds of change blow, some build walls. Others build windmills." Collapse doesn't have to mean defeat. It can mean awakening. Panic won't help. Denial won't either. The question isn't whether you'll make it through. It's how soon can you adapt?

Find your clarity to design a better way forward.