The inversion of the poles

As we come closer and closer to 2012, all the "end of the world" prophets start to awake from their slumber. One of the prophecies of the end of times is related to the inversion of the (magnetic) poles, which would cause a tremendous catastrophe.

Will that happen or not? It really doesn't matter, because, guess what, it is ALREADY HAPPENING!

Didn't you know? Let me see... I was just checking some news from Brazil, related to foreigners whose residence have been approved. For years, Brazilians have been a migratory people. We have been able to blend with other cultures, learning their language and way of lives in a very easy way. One of the main destinations have been Portugal, for obvious reasons starting from language and the fact that most of us have met Portuguese people, neighbors and shopkeepers, at some point in our lives, so we know a bit of the culture. Well, the poles are inverted... Portuguese is the main nationality in terms of requiring immigration status in Brazil now.

Not only that. While Spain, a traditional destination for Spanish-speaking countries like my home, Colombia, is in very bad shape, Latinamerica in general is getting better and better. So, just wait and see: those who have migrated to Spain are already coming back and in less than one year, Spaniards will start to migrate to our much warmer countries. Just a guess, but probably countries like Argentina, Peru and possibly Colombia will be a nice destination for them.

So, what to do? I think the wise thing for those of the first world is starting to learn a bit from the emergent countries on how to cope with the crisis.

The main challenge is probably the fact we ourselves do not understand exactly how we did it. For instance, everyday there are bad and good news about crisis in USA. So... if they are in crisis, only bad news should come from there, right? NO! During our worst crisis period, some parts of the economy were still growing.

It was remarkable how airports were full during periods of worse crisis in Colombia and Brazil. Perhaps, one sign was that there was few foreigners, mostly were native and flights leaving the country were full, whilst flying coming to the country were almost empty. But, crisis do not mean NOTHING IS HAPPENING. Crisis is there, but the money is also there, only it is in the, let's say, "wrong places".

Another example a friend of mine was giving me is related to the growth of make-up companies. He was saying on how during the worst crisis, Yanbal, one of the big companies in Latinamerica, has grown and he had the opportunity to train them. Asked why was that, he simply answered people were looking for jobs, so they needed to look beautiful.

The last thing is how we were able to overcome desperation. Religion and spirituality had lots of influence in that. During crisis, people not only prayed more, but they were more detached from material things and they were giving importance to the imperishable.

These small lessons will help those countries during these hard times, at least to understand what is going on. It will help those peoples to have a different approach towards life, more spiritual, more humane.