Not the Future We Ordered:  Peak Oil, Psychology,  and the Myth of  Progress
"InNot the Future We Ordered, Greer offers two inspirational challenges to the reader. One is a new definition of the wordhope. 'Hope is not optimism,' he says. 'It is not the passive expectation that good things will inevitably come one’s way. Rather, it is the recognition that no matter what the circumstances might be, there are positive goals that can be achieved if they are pursued with forethought and a sustained willingness to try.' Additionally, Greer issues a clarion call to psychotherapists and helping professionals to move through their own denial and learn the realities of our predicament because they will 'find themselves called upon to deal with the individual and collective psychological impacts of the arrival of a future unpleasantly different from the one most of us expect.' I wholeheartedly recommendNot the Future We Ordered. Just as we face a future that we did not order, Greer suggests strategies that we may not have 'ordered' for preparing emotionally and spiritually to navigate it. These require commitment and a great deal of personal introspection, alongside dynamic engagement with the community in order to create more resilient lives.Not the Future We Orderedabandons all hubris and radically redefines 'hope,' moving it from passive expectation to pro-active empowerment."