3 Pillars You Need to Weather Any Storm
Set yourself and your family up for long term success amidst decline
It’s popular now to say that the West is in decline — and it’s certainly something I’ve written about many times. The signs are all too apparent: a crushing cost of living, plummeting birthrates, and increasing political instability.
But most people make a huge mistake when they think about decline. They imagine it and feel a sense of impending doom. They think it means the end of their personal story.
History shows us a paradox, though. When Rome crumbled, there were certain groups of people who didn’t merely survive — they actually ascended. While the world spiraled into chaos, these groups built foundations that lasted for centuries, seemingly immune from the decline around them.
How did they do it? And what can we learn from them?
By examining history’s most chaotic periods, I’ve uncovered three principles that make an individual — and their lineage — truly resilient. These are the pillars that allowed the survivors of history’s dying empires to weather the storm and plant the seeds of new civilizations.
If you master these three things, you’ll be following in the footsteps of history’s greatest overcomers — those who didn’t let their environment slow them down. Like them, you also can ascend amidst the decline around you.
Faith First
The first pillar that allows individuals to transcend the chaos is an unflinching religious faith. At first this might sound like a cliché, but from a historical perspective, faith is the bedrock of every great civilization. There is no such thing as a great culture that is not, at its core, a religious culture.
Historian Will Durant claimed a culture’s success was intrinsically tied to its religiosity. Strong nations were born out of faithful people, but when religion dwindled, things started to fall apart. Durant, who had studied dozens of civilizations and wrote the classic work The Story of Civilization, claimed that cultures always begin with religious fervor which gives a nation strength to overcome great difficulty.
It’s their faith in a higher power that allows them to bear the initial “growth pains” that precede prosperity. In Greece and Rome, for example, mythologies told of heroes who battled overwhelming adversity to accomplish their goals. These myths inspired their peoples to overcome struggles while offering an ideal to strive for.
It’s also of note that a people’s religion is actually strengthened by hardship. Durant writes that “...a firm faith will explain that it was the sins of the people that turned their gods to an avenging wrath; evil does not destroy faith, but strengthens it.” Durant believed tough times were actually essential to building the character and faith of a nation.
And the reverse means the downfall of a civilization and its religion: once success and abundance are eventually attained, the seeds of a culture’s downfall has already been planted. Durant writes:
“If victory comes, if war is forgotten in security and peace, then wealth grows… toil and suffering are replaced by pleasure and ease; science weakens faith even while thought and comfort weaken virility and fortitude…”
When there are no great struggles left, people tend to lose their religiosity, and an analytical yet nihilistic ethos dominates the culture. Sound familiar? This certainly sounds like where we are today.
Durant was far from the only thinker to link a culture’s religiosity with its success. English historian Arnold Toynbee pointed toward religious faith as a key way for people to transcend decline. He used the early Christian saints and martyrs as examples of this overcoming. Though they faced hardship and persecution, their suffering was actually instrumental in reinforcing their faith and helping to spread Christianity. This religious foundation eventually forged Western civilization. Instead of hardship being an obstacle, it was directed in a new, creative way. Toynbee writes:
“It is not, then, by seeking to escape suffering, but by embracing and responding to it, that the soul born into a disintegrating society can win release and regain…the path of growth from which his society has strayed…”
So if religion is what allows cultures to overcome suffering and hardship, it follows that faith must be embraced by those who wish to flourish during the decline of a dying civilization. Only through true belief can one find the strength to carry on during hard times and help right the course of a wandering ship.
Think Like a Dynasty
The second pillar necessary to transcend the decay of modern culture is what I call a dynastic mindset. To ensure your efforts actually outlast the current instability, you need to start thinking generationally.
All of the great civilizations throughout history were built on the idea of family and dynasty — why build anything at all if it will simply disappear after you’re gone? Longevity requires thinking beyond mere lifespans and embracing a generational approach.
For example, there were families in ancient Rome who lasted throughout all of its political turmoil, wars of succession, and changes in government — dynasties that lasted centuries. They proved that family was more powerful than institutions.
You may have heard of the Julii clan who gave us Julius Caesar. This clan was one of the original patrician families that were present when Rome was still a kingdom. Some legends even connect them to the time of Rome’s founder Romulus. Despite their legendary origins, they sunk into relative obscurity for a century and a half. For a time, they didn’t have any notable members even though they were still an elite family who held considerable political power.
But this shows us how resilient generational thinking is. They reemerged in full force in the late republic, and once Julius Caesar burst on the scene, they became part of the Julio-Claudian dynasty which gave us Rome’s first imperial dynasty.
Families outlive institutions and governments when approached with a generational and deliberate mindset. Decades or even centuries of unassuming groundwork can shape entire societies. And some families can even outlive empires…
