Are Your Lights On?

I’ve always appreciated juicy stories- you know the kind you listen to with your jaw wide open anticipating a fabulous ending-but I’ve never been a fan of scary ones. Those usually end up making me paranoid in the early hours of the morning and have me sleeping with all the lights on. However, I never imagined one of those scary stories being about my future, much less about an issue relating to oil!

My ears perked up during one of Daniel’s last segments, as a guest voice suddenly brought clarity on a difficult topic. I saw my life flash before my eyes, and yes, it was an OMG moment - let me explain.

Oil expert Matt Simmons was on with Dan and exposed the hard truths about oil. Now of course, I’m not an authorized judge of character when it comes to analyzing oil experts, but the reason I call Mr. Simmons an expert is because he made such a complex subject easy to understand.
Here is the thing, seriously read on carefully. Have you ever heard of Kübler-Ross’ 5 stages of grief? In case you haven’t, let’s briefly re-cap.

First, there is the stage of denial. We all know what this is. “No, we are okay on oil supply and production” – Yeah, that’s a lie!

Then there is that really attractive anger stage that involves cursing at the oil as if it could ever respond, c’mon we can’t stoop to this pathetic stage.

Next we have good ol’ fashioned bargaining, which goes a little something like this “No really, we have a couple more years left until we should really worry about a back-up plan for oil.”

We can't forget Xanax’s best friend, the depression stage. This is essentially losing hope and living in a state of fear.

Well, the 5th and final stage kills all the lies and brings you back to reality--the wonderful stage of acceptance. This is where Matt Simmons comes into play. He has studied and lived in the world of oil. He has accepted the truth, which is that we need to stop using precious oil!
The problem is not oil scarcity. The problem is the drilling locations; there are so many parameter facets to consider that it simply wouldn’t be worthwhile to do off shore drilling. Not only this, but who in the heck is going to operate the machinery, and is anyone keeping in mind how costly this is going to be? Presidential candidates are presenting their future solutions to defeat the oil crisis, but are they being realistic?

I find myself agreeing with Simmons, it’s all a bit for political publicity. Just like every other issue constantly upheld in the presidential debates.

It’s simply not realistic ,you know? We can’t possibly build oil rigs right now! Last time we did that was, whoof, back in WWII and that was accomplished by shutting down the economy. If we shut it down now, we will fall apart. As a leading country, we can’t afford to fall apart.

Don’t live in those dangerous stages of grief, learn to accept the truth. Simmons couldn’t have been louder and clearer, there is no other way out. We need to stop digging and use less oil. Same idea goes for the gas prices I explained in the last blog, the way to solve increasing prices is by making more money. Making more opportunities and improving your status.

Bottom line is . . . it’s not just another scary flick keeping me awake at night. Worrying about the future because it involves me and will ultimately affect my generation is more than enough to keep this chick sleepin’ with one eye open! So tonight, don’t stop to wonder why my lights are on, because I’m totally freaked out!