Life

Should You Move To Another Country To Escape The Collapse Of America? 10 Questions To Ask Yourself First

Should You Move To Another Country To Escape The Collapse Of America?Why are so many people leaving the United States right now?  Over the past couple of years, an increasing number of Americans have decided that moving to another country is the best way to prepare for the collapse of America.  According to the U.S. State Department, an all-time record of more than 6 million Americans are now working or studying overseas.  Of course many of those that have left the country do not believe that the U.S. economy is going to collapse, but without a doubt there are an increasing number of preppers that believe that now is the time to “escape from America” while they still can.  And certainly there are a lot of reasons why the U.S. is becoming less appealing with each passing day.  In addition to our economic problems, crime is on the rise in our cities, our liberties and freedoms are being eroded at a frightening pace, political correctness is wildly out of control, and our corrupt politicians continue to make things even worse.  But is life really that much better in the rest of the world?  The sad truth is that life in most other nations is more difficult than it is in the United States.  Yes, there are some nations that are relatively stable and that look promising at first glance, but the truth is that moving to another country is never easy.  If you plan to do it, there are some hard questions that you need to ask yourself first.

If you plan to move permanently to another nation, it would be wise to visit first.  The way that things work in a foreign country is often very, very different from how things work in the United States.  If you are not accustomed to being in a foreign culture, it can feel like your whole world is being turned upside down.

But of course it is definitely possible to make a successful transition to another culture.  Millions of Americans have done it.  The following is from a recent RT article…

Ever dream of leaving it all behind and heading out of America? You’re not the only one. A new study shows that more US citizens than ever before are living outside of the country.

According to statistics from the US State Department, around 6.4 million Americans are either working or studying overseas, which Gallup says is the largest number ever for such statistic.

The polling organization came across the number after conducting surveys in 135 outside nations and the information behind the numbers reveal that this isn’t exactly a longtime coming either — numbers have skyrocketed only in recent years. In the 24 months before polling began, the number of Americans between the ages of 25 and 34 living abroad managed to surge from barely 1 percent to over 5.1 percent. For those under the age span wishing to move overseas, the percentage has jumped in the same amount of time from 15 percent to 40.

But picking up and moving to a foreign nation is not something to be done lightly.

The following are 10 questions to ask yourself before you decide to move to another country…

Do You Speak The Language?  If Not, How Will You Function?

If you do not speak the language of the country that you are moving to, that can create a huge problem.  Just going to the store and buying some food will become a challenge.  Every interaction that you have with anyone in that society will be strained, and your ability to integrate into the culture around you will be greatly limited.

How Will You Make A Living?

Unless you are independently wealthy, you will need to make money.  In a foreign nation, it may be very difficult for you to find a job – especially one that pays as much as you are accustomed to making in the United States.

Will You Be Okay Without Your Family And Friends?

Being thousands of miles away from all of your family and friends can be extremely difficult.  Will you be okay without them?  And it can be difficult to survive in a foreign culture without any kind of a support system.  Sometimes the people that most successfully move out of the country are those that do it as part of a larger group.

Have You Factored In Weather Patterns And Geological Instability?

As the globe becomes increasingly unstable, weather patterns and natural disasters are going to become a bigger factor in deciding where to live.  For example, right now India is suffering through the worst drought that it has experienced in nearly 50 years.  It would be very difficult to thrive in the middle of such an environment.

Many of those that are encouraging people to “escape from America” are pointing to Chile as an ideal place to relocate to.  But there are thousands of significant earthquakes in Chile each year, and the entire nation lies directly along the “Ring of Fire” which is becoming increasingly unstable.  That is something to keep in mind.

What Will You Do For Medical Care?

If you or someone in your family had a serious medical problem in the United States, you would know what to do.  Yes, our health care system is incredibly messed up, but at least you would know that you could get the care that you needed if an emergency arose.  Would the same be true in a foreign nation?

Are You Moving Into A High Crime Area?

Yes, crime is definitely on the rise in the United States.  But in other areas where many preppers are moving to, crime is even worse.  Mexico and certain areas of Central America are two examples of this.  And in many foreign nations, the police are far more corrupt than they generally are in the United States.

In addition, many other nations have far stricter gun laws than the United States does, so your ability to defend your family may be greatly restricted.

So will your family truly be safe in the nation that you plan to take them to?

Are You Prepared For “Culture Shock”?

Moving to another country can be like moving to a different planet.  After all, they don’t call it “culture shock” for nothing.

If you do move to another country, you may quickly find that thousands of little things that you once took for granted in the U.S. are now very different.

And there is a very good chance that many of the “amenities” that you are accustomed to in the U.S. will not be available in a foreign nation and that your standard of living will go down.

So if you are thinking of moving somewhere else, you may want to visit first just to get an idea of what life would be like if you made the move.

What Freedoms and Liberties Will You Lose By Moving?

Yes, our liberties and our freedoms are being rapidly eroded in the United States.  But in many other nations around the world things are much worse.  You may find that there is no such thing as “freedom of speech” or “freedom of religion” in the country that you have decided to move to.

Is There A Possibility That The Country You Plan To Escape To Could Be Involved In A War At Some Point?

We are moving into a time of great geopolitical instability.  If you move right into the middle of a future war zone, you might really regret it.  If you do plan to move, try to find a country that is likely to avoid war for the foreseeable future.

When The Global Economy Collapses, Will You And Your Family Be Okay For Food?

What good will it be to leave the United States if you and your family run out of food?

Today, we are on the verge of a major global food crisis.  Global food reserves are at their lowest level in nearly 40 years, and shifting global weather patterns are certainly not helping things.

And the global elite are rapidly getting more control over the global food supply.  Today, between 75 and 90 percent of all international trade in grain is controlled by just four gigantic multinational food corporations.

But grain is not the only thing that the food giants control.  Just check out the following statistics from a recent Natural News article…

The paper said three mega-multinationals now control better than 40 percent of global coffee sales, for example. Eight companies control the supply of cocoa and chocolate. Seven control the lion’s share – 85 percent – of tea production. Five multinationals control three-quarters of the world banana trade. And the largest half-dozen sugar traders account for about 66 percent of world trade, the new report by the Fairtrade Foundation said.

The elite are also buying up food producing real estate all over the globe.  That is why farmland prices in the United States have been absolutely skyrocketing lately.

The people that run the world are rapidly getting a stranglehold over the global food supply.

So wherever you end up – whether it is in the United States or in another country – you will need to make sure that you can provide enough food for you and your family to live on independently of the system.

These are all things to think about when considering whether or not to move out of the United States.

But there are many, including some of those that regularly read my website, that have made the transition successfully.

If you have some advice that you would like to share with those that are considering moving away from America, please feel free to share it below…

The Planet Earth From Space

You Will Not Believe What Some People Are Willing To Do For A Paycheck These Days

It is absolutely amazing what some people will do to make a living in this economy.  Desperate times call for desperate measures, and we have not seen this kind of desperation for jobs in America since the Great Depression of the 1930s.  What some people are willing to put up with just to bring home a paycheck these days will totally shock you.  For example, would you slaughter dogs all day long even though you are really a dog lover?  Would you personally train your replacement from China even though you knew he was about to take your job?  Would you trade sex for a job?  There are people out there actually doing all these things and worse.  Every night in America, millions upon millions of people roll around endlessly in their beds and stare at their ceilings for hours because they can’t sleep.  They are sick to their stomachs because their money is gone and nobody will hire them.  They can’t provide even the basics for their families and they feel worthless.  Unemployment can be absolutely soul crushing and it can suck the life right out of you.  Things were supposed to be better by now, but they aren’t.  The month after Barack Obama took office the unemployment rate broke the 8 percent barrier and it has stayed above it ever since.  But the truth is that the “official” unemployment number greatly understates the real amount of suffering that is going on out there.  In reality, the percentage of working age Americans that have jobs is lower today than when the last recession ended.  There are millions upon millions of Americans that are desperate for some hope, and there is no hope on the horizon.  In fact, things are going to be getting a whole lot worse for the U.S. economy.

I like personal stories because they tell us things that all of the economic statistics in the world never could.

There are millions of Americans that have had their lives totally turned upside down by this economy.  They feel abandoned and worthless, and many of them feel as though life is no longer worth living.

As you read the following stories, try to put yourself in their shoes and try to feel their pain.

Also, try to remember that these kinds of stories are going to multiply in the years ahead as the U.S. economy falls apart all around us.

A 61-Year-Old Woman Begging For A Job

A recent article posted on gawker.com included the story of a 61-year-old woman who has been through hell and back during this economic downturn….

I sent out close to 500 resumes. Most never were even acknowledged and those that were I was told I was over qualified. When you would press them they would fumble but I was sure my age was part of the “over qualified”. The thoughts of wanting life to be over were with me every day. I wanted the horror to stop. Every time I would hear of the unemployment rates I would cry-what about ME.

At one point she was so desperate she took a job where she was making the decision about what dogs to slaughter at an animal shelter.  Approximately 85 percent of the dogs at the shelter ended up being killed, and she was working about 80 hours a week doing this.  The really sad part is that she really loves dogs….

In 2008 I was able to get a job at the local shelter as a dog trainer. That turned into a job as an Operations Manager. Though I was thankful for the job we had a euthanasia rate of nearly 85%. I was the one that would be the decision maker on who lives and dies of over 10,000 animals per year and the toll mentally was hard. Being salary I was working nearly 80 hours a week due to shorthanded staff.

After she was fired for not being aggressive enough in killing off dogs, she started endlessly sending out resumes once again.  Nobody wants to hire her, and she essentially feels like an old lady begging for a job….

Since February I began sending out 3 resumes a day. As the no return answer, over qualified and now I was getting I was out of engineering too long I started to set my sights lower. I have sent in resumes to sit in the booth in gas stations, secretary and so on. Local colleges have said I am qualified to teach there but they have no openings. I am for all purposes the old lady begging for a job.

Personally Training Their Replacements

If you knew that your company was going to tear down your factory and send your job to China, would you personally train your replacement?

That is what a whole bunch of workers in Illinois are doing.

The following is from a recent article that appeared in the Guardian….

The shock of losing a precious job in a town afflicted by high unemployment is always hard. A foundation for a stable family life and secure home instantly disappears, replaced with a future filled with fears over health insurance, missed mortgage payments and the potential for a slip below the breadline.

But for Bonnie Borman – and 170 other men and women in Freeport, Illinois – there is a brutal twist to the torture. Borman, 52, and the other workers of a soon-to-be-shuttered car parts plant are personally training the Chinese workers who will replace them.

It’s a surreal experience, they say. For months they have watched their plant being dismantled and shipped to China, piece by piece, as they show teams of Chinese workers how to do the jobs they have dedicated their lives to.

Can you imagine that?

Would you be willing to do the same thing just to keep the paychecks coming in for as long as possible?

Sadly, both major political parties are obsessed with promoting unrestricted free trade even though millions of American jobs continue to go overseas.

Our top political candidates even argue about which of them love “free trade” more.

It truly is sickening.

Do you remember when U.S. taxpayers bailed out the auto industry?

Well, since the auto industry bailout approximately 70 percent of all GM vehicles have been built outside the United States.

The insanity has gotten to such a level that some Americans simply cannot take it anymore.  Just consider the following example from a recent article by Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele….

On his last day on the job, Kevin Flanagan, after clearing out a few personal effects and putting them in boxes in the back of his Ford Ranger, left the building where he’d worked for seven years.

He settled into the front seat of his pickup truck on the lower level of the company garage, placed a 12-gauge Remington shotgun to his head, and pulled the trigger. He was 41 years old.

He was a computer programmer. He’d been a programmer his entire working life. Until, that is, his job was shipped overseas. The business of moving traditional U.S. jobs abroad-called “outsourcing”-has been one of this country’s few growth industries. It’s the ultimate short-sighted business promoted by the country’s elite because it means lower wages and fatter profits. As for the American workers eliminated along the way, they are just collateral damage.

It turns out that Kevin’s replacement was a programmer from India that he personally trained.

Trading Sex For A Job

If you were truly desperate, would you trade sex for a job?

I hope not, but that is exactly what some Americans are doing.

The following is a story from a desperate unemployed woman that was posted on gawker.com recently….

I have been very depressed since I lost my job. I go through periods where I spend most of my days in bed, and although I’ve had a few interviews those people don’t even have the decency to let you know the position is filled. Sometimes I’d call for weeks asking for updates only to get the HR persons voicemail, and they’d never return my calls. With no experience I can’t even get a job waiting tables. I apply to every job in the paper and online, whether I’m qualified or not, and have had 7 interviews total, none of which ended with a job offer. Living paycheck to paycheck would be a blessing at this point.

She has become so desperate that she is even willing to trade her body for a paycheck….

The current ‘bright side’ is that I know someone who owns a small retail clothing chain and has offered me a minimum wage job there on the condition that we become ‘close friends’. I think you & I both know what that entails, but at this time in my life it seems like a better alternative than losing the little that I have. I’d have a paycheck equal to what I am getting on unemployment with the opportunity for overtime and advancements, full benefits and a schedule that would allow me to continue schooling.

A Lot More Layoffs Coming Soon

The frightening thing is that a whole lot more layoffs are on the horizon.

Just check out this excerpt from a recent article on thehill.com….

Lockheed Martin and Pratt & Whitney are going forward with plans to issue layoff notices to thousands of employees due to looming defense cuts under sequestration, despite administration claims that such warnings are unnecessary.

So how many jobs will be lost?

Unfortunately, it is being projected that we could be looking at a million jobs lost….

Top industry officials have said publicly that automatic cut under sequestration could lead to the loss of 1 million defense-related jobs.

Industry leaders and their supporters in Congress say those job losses would hit battleground states such as Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and Florida particularly hard.

Like I have written about before, we simply cannot continue to steal more than a trillion dollars from future generations every single year, but when we do make deep cuts to the federal budget the economic pain is going to be immense.

We already have more than 100 million Americans on welfare.

What is this country going to look like if things get even worse?

The good news is that if you do lose your job and your home you might have somewhere to sleep.  New York City is opening up a bunch of new homeless shelters….

New York City has opened nine new shelters in the last two months in efforts to handle the city’s rapidly growing homeless population, officials said.

The city recorded 43,731 homeless people in shelters this week, which is up 18 percent from the 37,143 at the same time last year, The New York Times reported.

So don’t get too down.

If you can’t find a job and you can’t afford a home perhaps you can at least get into one of those shiny new homeless shelters.

Seriously, I don’t actually want anyone reading this to end up in a homeless shelter.

That is why I endlessly urge people to adjust their priorities and to work as hard as they can right now to prepare for the very hard economic times that are coming.

Now is not the time to be going on expensive vacations and now is not the time to be blowing your money on all kinds of stupid stuff.

We are moving into the most difficult times that any of us have ever seen, and if you do nothing to prepare yourself you will be very sorry.

18 Examples Of The Nanny State Gone Wild

America has been overrun by control freaks.  Once upon a time the United States was considered to be “the land of the free and the home of the brave”, but today there are millions of laws, rules and regulations that tightly regulate our daily lives.  Most of these laws, rules and regulations were established by people who believed that they had “good intentions”, but at this point the nanny state has become so oppressive that it is strangling the life out of us.  If you look back throughout history, the societies that have really thrived have had a very high degree of liberty and freedom.  When the bureaucrats get the upper hand, it can suck the life out of any economy.  Unfortunately, our political system seems to be a magnet for control freaks.  These control freaks truly believe that they know better than the rest of us and they are systematically moving toward taking total control of our lives.  Our rights are being stripped away a little bit more with each passing day, and we are being told that we need a “permit” or a “license” for almost everything.  Many younger Americans have been living this kind of “straight jacket existence” for so long that they don’t even remember what real liberty and freedom are.  We are steamrolling down the road toward totalitarianism, and most Americans don’t even realize what is happening.

Sadly, there are many Americans that actually agree that the state should regulate nearly every detail of our lives.  There are many Americans that actually believe that life is better when there are millions of rules that we all have to follow.  There are many Americans that actually believe that too much liberty and freedom is a bad thing.

If we are not careful the control freaks are going to destroy this nation.  They always tell us that the rules that they are imposing upon us are “for our own good”, but every time they lay another burden on our backs they just suck a little bit more life out of us all.

The following are 18 examples of the nanny state gone wild….

#1 New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has announced that he wants to ban the sale of all large sodas and sugary drinks in order to fight obesity.  Personally I don’t have any sodas in my refrigerator, but I certainly do not want the government telling me that I am banned from drinking large sodas.  Every American should have the freedom to decide if they want to drink soda or not.

#2 In North Carolina, authorities are threatening to send a blogger to prison for blogging about his battle against diabetes….

Steve Cooksey has learned that the definition, at least in the eyes of the state board, is expansive.

When he was hospitalized with diabetes in February 2009, he decided to avoid the fate of his grandmother, who eventually died of the disease. He embraced the low-carb, high-protein Paleo diet, also known as the “caveman” or “hunter-gatherer” diet. The diet, he said, made him drug- and insulin-free within 30 days. By May of that year, he had lost 45 pounds and decided to start a blog about his success.

But this past January the state diatetics and nutrition board decided Cooksey’s blog — Diabetes-Warrior.net — violated state law. The nutritional advice Cooksey provides on the site amounts to “practicing nutrition,” the board’s director says, and in North Carolina that’s something you need a license to do.

#3 In San Francisco, if you do not recycle your trash correctly you can be fined up to $500.

#4 The following are just some of the cities that have started using RFID tracking chips to monitor the recycling habits of their citizens….

*Cleveland, Ohio

*Charlotte, North Carolina

*Alexandria, Virginia

*Boise, Idaho

*Dayton, Ohio

*Flint, Michigan

#5 In Minnetonka, Minnesota you can be fined up to $2,000 for having a muddy vehicle.

#6 In Hazelwood, Missouri it is against the law for little girls to sell girl scout cookies in front of their own homes.

#7 San Francisco has implemented a ban on Happy Meal toys.

#8 Over the past couple of years there have been quite a few instances all over the country where lemonade stands run by children have been shut down by police because the children had not acquired the proper permits.

#9 State legislatures all over the country have been passing legislation making it more difficult for parents to opt out of having their children vaccinated.

#10 In many U.S. states is it now illegal to collect any rain that falls on to your own property.

#11 In San Juan Capistrano, California it is against the law to hold a home Bible study without a “conditional use permit“.

#12 In New York City, it is against the law to smoke at public parks and beaches.

#13 In California,”food confiscation teams” visit the homes of people that have been discovered to have purchased raw milk.  The following is from a recent Natural News article….

In a bombshell revelation of the depth of the food police state that now exists in LA County, California, NaturalNews has learned that the LA County health department has unleashed door-to-door raw milk confiscation teams to threaten and intimidate raw dairy customers into surrendering raw milk products they legally purchased and own.

According to Mark McAfee (see quotes below), both LA County and San Diego county have attempted to acquire customer names and addresses from Organic Pastures (www.OrganicPastures.com) for the sole purpose of sending “food confiscation teams” to customers’ homes to remove the raw milk from customers’ refrigerators. Using both phone calls and home visits, these teams intimidate customers and try to force them to give up their milk.

#14 In Hilton Head, South Carolina it is illegal to have trash in your car.

#15 In major cities all over the United States feeding the homeless has been banned due to “health reasons”.

#16 In Louisiana, one church was ordered to stop passing out water because it did not have the proper permit.

#17 At public schools all over the United States, the lunches that little children bring from home are now inspected to make sure that they meet USDA guidelines.  The following is one recent report of this phenomenon from North Carolina….

A preschooler at West Hoke Elementary School ate three chicken nuggets for lunch Jan. 30 because the school told her the lunch her mother packed was not nutritious.

The girl’s turkey and cheese sandwich, banana, potato chips, and apple juice did not meet U.S. Department of Agriculture guidelines, according to the interpretation of the person who was inspecting all lunch boxes in the More at Four classroom that day.

The Division of Child Development and Early Education at the Department of Health and Human Services requires all lunches served in pre-kindergarten programs — including in-home day care centers — to meet USDA guidelines. That means lunches must consist of one serving of meat, one serving of milk, one serving of grain, and two servings of fruit or vegetables, even if the lunches are brought from home.

#18 Today, a vast array of government agencies is constantly monitoring what all of us say and do on the Internet.  They claim that this helps makes us all more “safe” and “secure”.

In order to maintain proper “control” over our lives, the nanny state is obsessed with watching us and monitoring us.  This point was beautifully made in a recent article by Chuck Baldwin….

America is no longer “one nation under God.” Today, America is “one nation under surveillance.” Cameras monitoring our every movement, satellites taking pictures of our homes, listening devices being used to record our conversations, hi-tech computers capturing virtually every piece of correspondence, banking institutions forwarding our private financial records to Big Brother, and now armed drones flying over the neighborhoods of the American citizenry all reveal that America is anything but the “land of the free.”

Is this really how we want to live?

Do we want our children and our grandchildren to live their lives in a nation that is increasingly coming to resemble totalitarian regimes like North Korea?

Yes, every society needs laws.

But we don’t need millions of them.

Our founders intended to create a society where liberty and freedom would be maximized, and all of that liberty and freedom helped create an environment that gave birth to the greatest economic machine that the world has ever seen.

But now the control freaks are choking the life out of our society.  Please take a stand against them while you still can.

When Times Get Tough, The Tough Get A Backbone

Do not ever give up.  That is one of the secrets to life.  Almost everyone comes to a moment in life when things look absolutely hopeless.  But those that have come through those moments know that there is always a way to turn things around.  When times get tough, the tough get a backbone.  Yes, a horrific economic collapse is coming and the world is going to become incredibly unstable.  But the purpose of waking people up and getting them to realize what is about to happen is not so that they can shiver in fear.  When a military unit gets intel that indicates that the enemy arrayed against them is far more powerful than previously thought, do they give up all hope and run away like little girls?  Of course not.  Instead, they use that intel to prepare for the coming battle.  Only cowards give up.  When you totally give up, you lose everything and the enemy wins.  Our life does not consist of what we own anyway.  If every single thing that you own was taken away from you, would your life be over?  No!  When we leave this world, we will not be remembered for what we owned.  Rather, we will be remembered for how we lived.

The cowardly never finish the race and they never win any prizes.  Being a coward may seem like a way to escape short-term pain, but in the end it is never worth it.

Those of us living in the United States have had it good for so long that most of us don’t even know what it is like to go through hard times.

But just because a great era of prosperity is coming to an end does not mean that our lives will be over.  There are plenty of people on the other side of the globe that only have one set of clothes and that don’t know where their next meal is coming from, and yet many of those same people are incredibly happy and full of life.

Just because a time of great darkness is coming to this world does not mean that you have to give in to fear.  All of us feel fear from time to time.  Courage does not mean that you don’t feel any fear.  It means that you can take action in spite of the fear.

When times are the darkest, that is when the light is needed the most.  As the world falls apart, there will be a much greater need for heroes than ever before.

So decide to be a hero instead of a coward.

Sticking our heads in the sand and pretending that everything is going to be okay does not do anyone any good.  Denying clear and obvious evidence of what is about to happen is just another form of cowardice.

As I wrote about yesterday, 2012 is going to be a very difficult year and Europe is on the verge of a massive financial collapse.  The stunning long-term decline of the U.S. economy is likely to accelerate and the middle class is going to continue to be ripped to shreds.

All over the globe, prominent voices in the financial world are declaring that a nightmare is about to begin.  For example, renowned investor Jim Rogers recently said the following….

“Eventually one of two things has to happen. We have to get together now and ring-fence the problem and figure out how we are going to survive and start over. Or, in a year or two or three, the market is going to say, no more money, we won’t put up any more money. And then the whole system collapses, then you have gigantic chaos, social unrest, governments failing, civil war – huge mess”

So should we all throw our hands up in the air and give up?

No!

Now is the time to get a backbone and to prepare for what is ahead.

Just think of the great heroes throughout history.  What made those people into great heroes?

They became great heroes because they triumphed in the midst of great adversity.

So do you want to be a winner or do you want to be a loser?

If you give up, you are automatically a loser.

If you keep on fighting for what is right, you are automatically a winner even if it costs you your life eventually.

So don’t be stupid.

Is your life really hard right now?

Well, there are huge numbers of people sleeping on the streets of America tonight.  Most of them probably have it a lot rougher than you do.

A lot of people that have lost their homes have battled back and have totally rebuilt their lives.  They were able to do that because they never gave up.

For example, one woman in the Washington D.C. area that lost everything and ended up on the streets fought back and reclaimed her life.  She did what she could with what she had, and her tireless efforts paid off.  She even became a Twitter celebrity….

For AnnMarie Walsh, attaining social media celebrity from the streets and shelters of the Northwest suburbs meant using the Internet at the Arlington Heights Memorial Library or searching for places to charge a hand-me-down phone that demanded cash for minutes.

Walsh’s savvy landed her a spot in a documentary called “Twittamentary” and a trip across the country to speak at a glitzy Los Angeles theater for the “140 Characters Conference.”

But perhaps the 41-year-old’s biggest coup was finding a place to live after more than five years of homelessness, thanks to a social worker who connected with her through Twitter.

A reader of my site has a story that is similar in a lot of ways.  He identifies himself as “JD”, and he left the following comment on one of my articles quite some time ago….

I was laid off from my construction job almost 2 yrs ago was on unenjoyment for over a yr they cut me off last september so i lost my apartment. Since then ive been couch surfing and hotel hopping. Now i occaisonally sleep in my car. I was lucky enough to have a friend with a lawn care business so i can at least put ever increasing gas in my car\house. I hate to say it but i think we will see hoovervilles in the major cities soon. When the welfare & food stamps & all the other govt. programs end the anarchy begins.

But guess what?

He did not give up.

He kept hanging in there.

Today, he is no longer homeless, he has a new job, and things are looking much, much brighter for him.

The following is another comment that he left on a recent article….

I love it here in Montana. We have problems but not everyone could live here especially when its -70 windchill and blowing snow. Its a hard country but its worth it to be away from the insanity of the cities. Millions will be freezing and starving to death before this decade is out, mark my words. The fight for freedom is on! LIVE FREE OR DIE HARD!!!!

That is the attitude of a hero.

If you have not seen it yet, please take a few minutes and watch the short video posted below.  It is entitled “100 Years In 10 Minutes”, and it is a great reminder of many of the heroes that have gone before us….

Yes, there are going to be many challenging times ahead.

But don’t be stupid and give up.

Instead, decide right now that you are going to be a light in the darkness.

Being a coward is not going to get you anything.

But if you will stand up and fight for what is true and right, the enemy may be able to eventually take your life, but they will never take your freedom.

As noted earlier, when times get tough, the tough get a backbone.

Will the years ahead find you cowering in fear or will they find you enjoying greater adventures than you ever dreamed of?

The choice, my friend, is up to you.