Choose LIFE HABITS That Feel Good — and Do Good Written by a real living being

March 1st, 2025

Last updated: February 12th, 2026 (AI and Education)

"To those who love wisdom, and prefer evidence to fantasies." - Yuval Noah Harari

Why This Book

Feeling healthy, fitter, with more energy and clarity of mind, and spending more time with our loved ones — that is being happier.

Living in coherence, respecting the Earth's resources that life on this planet depends on — that is feeling serenity.

This book lays out the life habits worth adopting that do us good. For ourselves. And for the planet alike. Feeling, from within, the benefits of these lifestyle changes is the best reward. And the best motivation for adopting this new way of living.

Why anchor all this in life habits? Because it is the only method that works. Because the effects then last over time, and because we no longer need to think about it. It has become automatic. Having these ways of living become habits — reflexes that no longer requi

Why This Book 1,035 words

The Situation as It Is

FACTS

FACT: underground oil stocks exist in finite quantities

The stocks of oil, gas, coal, and ores present underground exist in finite quantities. These stocks are being emptied further and further every year.

Oil takes 40 to 400 million years to be produced naturally underground. The peak of world production of oil, and of certain ores, has already been passed.

Indeed, the quantity of oil extracted worldwide has been declining since 2018. By 2050, world oil production will be halved. Which means that, in 25 years, the quantity of oil imported into Europe will be divided by a number between 2 and 20. Because oil-producing countries will most likely want to keep what remains for themselves.

The peak of gas production is expected around 2030.

The European Union imports 97% of its oil and 90% of its gas. Because Europe has no oil under its soil. Or too little and too scattered for it to be profitable to

FACTS 1,422 words

So What Is Going to Happen?

Without oil, and under the devastations of climate disruption: what is going to happen?

What oil made possible

Oil, exploited since the 1850s, makes immense economic gains possible.

It is thanks to these immense economic gains, thanks to vastly multiplied agricultural yields, that the world population exploded: 7 billion additional human beings in just 200 years.
It is thanks to these immense economic gains that paid holidays, pensions, social security, long studies, and welfare in all its forms appeared...
It is also thanks to these immense economic gains that slavery and inequality between men and women decreased. Because without oil, the number of human beings greedy for economic gain who resort without any scruple to the enslavement of men, women and children increases.

Without oil, what will remain of all these forms of solidarity and of these reduced inequalities?

Unemployment did

So What Is Going to Happen? 1,550 words

So What Do We Do?

So what do we do? Do we panic? Or we can act: action cancels fear.

The probability that things will turn out better increases if:

there is an understanding, among the widest possible fraction of the population, of
- the situation as it is
- the possible ways out
and the beginning of spontaneous organisation of the population to move in the right direction, within all small-scale organisations: companies, local authorities, associations, neighbourhoods... The goal being that everyone finds a role and a social status in this new organisation.

We thus increase the chances that this understanding of the situation, and the organisation flowing from it, rise to the tops of countries' hierarchies, and help prevent the emergence of dictatorships.

Change can only come from the bottom of a hierarchy

By definition, democracy is a bottom-up system: elected officials only move when the base moves. As long as we

So What Do We Do? 1,707 words

The Importance of Choosing Life Habits That Do Us Good

Change Can Only Come from the Bottom of Hierarchies

By definition, democracy is a bottom-up system:

nationally elected officials are a reflection of public opinion with a 3-year lag
locally elected officials are a reflection of public opinion with a 6-month lag

Elected officials only move when the base moves. So it is strictly useless to go and see elected officials to explain that we have a good idea. Because elected officials only move if there is a real threat of losing a good share of their voters. That is called democracy.

In the same way, we choose the companies we work for. If we disagree with the way a particular company is run, we refuse to work in that kind of firm: we do not apply to work there, and we resign if we discover after the fact that the company's management runs contrary to our values. A company nobody wants to work for anymore is then forced to review its workings and its values if it wants to survive.

Likewise, when what a company produces does not suit us, is contrary to o

Change Can Only Come from the Bottom of Hierarchies 6,223 words

Cohesion

Oil has made our lives so much easier that we need others less in order to survive. As a result, we have lost our spirit of cohesion. We mostly live centred on ourselves, withdrawn into ourselves or into our family unit. This lack of mutual aid, this felt loneliness, can lead to depression. Oil, which allows us to live so much more comfortably than before, should have made us happy — yet the number of unhappy people remains staggering.

It is time to rediscover our spirit of cohesion.

Let us start by ceasing to tear each other apart. Following what was described in the previous chapter, for example, some may still believe in the European Union, believe that it can still come back to reason. Even though Europe in fact imposes the dictatorship of the big industrial lobbies. Some may still hope to see imposed, through these same dictatorial methods, laws preserving the Earth's resources vital to humanity. Even though we are entitled to wonder which lobbies with sufficient financial means could out

Cohesion 5,194 words

Freedom of Expression

Who can claim to hold the truth and be certain of never being wrong? Who can claim to know everything and decide what is good for all of humanity?

No one.

Those who believe themselves entitled to impose on all of humanity what may be said and what may not be said are dangerous. To be avoided like the plague: they represent an extreme danger. For they are the ones who put in place dictatorships that cause thousands of deaths. There are enough examples in the past to observe and record that as soon as free speech is suppressed under a dictatorship, the number of tortured and dead is disastrous.

Moreover, banning certain speech by force only increases the hatred felt by those thus oppressed. Banning free speech triggers hatred and accelerates the escalation of violence.

Preserving freedom of expression

It is vital to preserve freedom of expression.

It is by communicating with others, by exchanging di

Freedom of Expression 2,965 words

Living in Coherence

Two possible scenarios can unfold in the future:

Chaos: some will die of famine, some will massacre each other to steal something to eat, wars will breed diseases
The majority of the population pivots in time to organise itself sufficiently in advance to produce, as locally as possible and with as few machines as possible, enough to feed everyone and limit the damage

If a certain threshold of the population is reached — convinced, and consequently changing its habits for a more measured way of life — then the rest of the population will suddenly follow. Indeed, the majority of people are "followers", because they do not have the time, or the courage, to look into the question of a lasting future for human beings if we continue to live immoderately.

Like all animals, accumulating and being lazy is a reflex embedded in us, because this reflex was a survival factor for millennia. On the other hand, unlike animals, we are lucky enough to be able to think and to be able to resist thes

Living in Coherence 835 words

The Life Habits That Do Us Good

Let's Choose the Life Habits That Do Us Good

Let us choose to adopt a measured way of life because it does us good. Us. Others. The environment that allows us to exist.

Moreover, the one and only "symbol of success" of a person is the fact of being happy — that is, feeling in coherence with the environment indispensable to their survival.

When we live in a measured way, we are in better health, we feel an inner coherence, we have more energy, and we are therefore happier.

All the habits that do us good and are listed in this book concern consuming fewer of the planet's resources, and thereby releasing fewer greenhouse gases.

Even when we choose to take a bicycle instead of a car to get around, the production of a bicycle required the extraction of the Earth's resources and generated greenhouse gases — but so much less, nevertheless, than the production of a car and its daily use.

Small gestures like switching off the lights or using reusable coffee cups really weigh nothing in the balance next to tac

Let's Choose the Life Habits That Do Us Good 1,294 words

Buy Local

The truck is now the "red blood cell" of the economic system. Without it, the end of supply chains: not one factory runs anymore, not one shop is stocked, not one building site takes place, not one harvest is delivered. Jancovici

The day there is no more oil, today's trucks will no longer be able to run. Nor will tractors.

It takes time to reorganise locally, to once again produce locally what is essential for living. Decades will be needed for this reorganisation.

Let us not wait to starve. Let us anticipate and organise ourselves now, in order to manage to feed the whole population locally.

Voting with our wallets

This is probably the first habit we can set in motion in our daily lives: buy local.

Voting with our wallets, by buying mostly — or e

Buy Local 2,583 words

Buy Only the Essentials for Living

"When we have enough to feed and shelter ourselves, why chase money and power?" Sapiens - A Brief History of Humankind - Yuval Noah Harari

Every product we buy, whatever it may be, required oil, gas or coal to be created — if only to create the machines needed for its creation, => and thus consumed part of the dwindling stocks of these energies, => consumed part of the stocks of the mines, which are also emptying little by little, => generated greenhouse gases, which in turn generate droughts and storms that devastate the world's harvests

The transformation of resources, renewable and non-renewable, to manufacture products generates pollution. This pollution degrades the very resources we use:

Climate disruption
Erosion of biodiversity
Overfishing
Pesticides
Pollutants in the groundwater
...

Every purchase contributes to this disaster. Cars, especially big SUV-sized ones. Smartphones, computers, appliances, clothes, furniture, kibble for dogs and cats...

Buy Only the Essentials for Living 2,973 words

Eat More Healthily

Eat less, and of better quality.

By buying, as a priority, local food, as unmechanised as possible, having used as little fertiliser and pesticide as possible, as unprocessed as possible, sold in as little packaging as possible.

PFAS, microplastics, pesticide metabolites endanger our health - Gaspard Koenig (in French)

Eating less meat

Currently, 80% of the cultivated land in Western countries is used to feed the animals we then eat. And currently, most animal feed is imported. The day there is no more oil, there will not be enough agricultural land to feed all these animals. And even if there are then fewer animals to feed because many will have starved, we will probably not have enough agricultural land in the country to feed the whole popul

Eat More Healthily 1,531 words

Average Carbon Footprint in France

Blocking Out Advertising

Let us block out advertising. And scam attempts at the same time.

Let us no longer allow advertising to forcibly invade our private lives without our having given permission.

This flood of intrusive advertising pushes us to buy ever more cars, junk food, appliances, furniture, clothes, cosmetics, smartphones, televisions, computers, games — a thousand things we do not really need.

Let us learn to erect barriers to protect our private lives. Our time is precious; let us not waste it reading, listening to, or watching advertisements. We have far more important things to do — if only to enjoy a moment of calm in this world that has become so noisy and so pressing, endlessly seeking to grab our attention.

"We all pay for this new madness of mankind, advertising, with its hateful noises, its shameless lights, its insolent proportions, its cynical injunctions, its intrusions and its obsessions..." Georges Duhamel

The more we let advertising into our private lives, the more tempte

Blocking Out Advertising 3,423 words

Insulating and Replacing Boilers with Heat Pumps

Insulating buildings

Let us insulate our homes to avoid heat loss in winter.

That will be so much saved on heating.

While emitting fewer greenhouse gases, and wasting fewer energy resources.

Replacing an oil or gas boiler with a heat pump

If we have the means, let us replace our old oil or gas boiler with a heat pump.

Or, failing that, with a wood-fired boiler.

Here again, to emit fewer greenhouse gases.

And in anticipation of the future when there will be no more oil — and soon no more gas either, since the peak of gas production is estimated around 2030.

A small electric car

If we really need a car, if we have no other choice, let us choose a small electric car.

The smallest possible.

Big cars like SUVs

Building Insulation and Heat Pumps 253 words

Limiting Streaming and AI as Much as Possible

The carbon footprint of digital technology is far from negligible.

Using the Internet means using an immense global network that has required considerable quantities of ores for the manufacture of cables, computers, servers, smartphones, tablets... It also requires phenomenal quantities of servers that stay on continuously, 24/7, and therefore consume an immense amount of electrical energy.

Digital technology accounted for 4% of global emissions in 2021 — the same emissions as all the trucks and heavy utility vehicles in the world (or twice the merchant navy).

A large half corresponds to the electricity powering networks, servers and devices (computers, connected TVs, smartphones...), and a small half to the annual manufacture of hardware components.

We have become hooked on digital technology. Here again, one more form of addiction. Let us be aware that we are addicted to the "click". When we start reading a news feed, we struggle to stop; we

Limiting Streaming and AI 1,662 words

Useful Hands-On Group Activities

Directly useful manual activities carried out in a group make us happy. Because it is in useful, manual effort that we feel the most cohesion with others.

It is also the only way to really know someone. Confining ourselves to chatter does not allow us to truly know a person — what they have deep in their guts and deep in their heart. The smoothest talkers are not necessarily the trustworthy ones.

Less chatter.

Written messages exchanged via the many existing apps do not replace seeing others face to face. Especially when the messages are too short and misinterpreted.

We only really know a person well when we work alongside them at an activity that demands effort from us both — real labour. That is where we see how the other person tackles difficulties and reacts, what their behaviour is, their motivation, their will and their energy. It is in effort that we give the best of ourselves and show what we are capable of.

And what satisfaction, what happiness, to behold the

Useful Hands-On Group Activities 529 words

Communicating

Education

Let us never stop communicating. With those around us. Through local talks, articles, books...

Communicating and exchanging ideas is the only way to evolve and move forward.

Let us calmly spread around us all these habits that do us good.

Let us buy local: what is produced closest to home, with food as the priority
Let us buy only the essentials: only what we need to live, of good quality, that lasts
Let us live locally, travel less far, mostly using the bicycle and public transport such as the train
Let us eat less: buying healthier, quality food, without chemical poisons
Let us insulate our homes and replace our oil or gas boilers with heat pumps
Let us block out advertising
Let us reduce the time spent behind screens, stop streaming
Let us rediscover our spirit of cohesion, act as a group through concrete, directly useful actions; plant hedges and tree species resistant to the fu

Communicating 2,778 words

Faced with the end of fossil fuels and minerals,
and under the ravages of a disrupted climate,
there are two types of reaction

A Visual Summary: We Can Choose to Feel Good

Currently there is a majority of

people who feel bad

who keep choosing to feel bad

Do We Really Want to Feel Bad? 23 words

Are we really happy with an excessive lifestyle?

The elected officials of the countries and of the European Union:

The underground stocks of oil, gas, coal and ores are running out and have already passed their production maximum:

When there is no longer enough fuel to run the machines, growth is impossible

Zero anticipation from Europe

The stocks of the Earth's resources will soon be empty — do we wait to starve, or do we ge

Are We Really Happy with an Excessive Lifestyle? 98 words

We can choose to feel good

by adopting a measured way of life

by acting with this majority taking shape a little more every day

by buying food produced as close to home as possible

by buying food produced without pesticides

by buying unprocessed food and cooking it ourselves

by replanting tree species resistant to a warmer climate

Relocalizing Agriculture 75 words

Education

The more the population grows, the more deforestation increases

Thanks to oil, agricultural yields were multiplied many times over and made the world population explode:

1 billion => 8 billion in 200 years

Without oil,

we will be forced back to the way of life of before 1850

In 1850 there was "only" 1 billion human beings to feed

Without oil,

with agricultural yields devastated by the disrupted climate,

how do we feed 8 billion individuals?

Education 100 words

Eat and consume less

by buying less sugar, meat, dairy and drinks

by buying only objects truly essential for living

=> better health for ourselves and for our wallets

Eat and Consume Less 40 words

Heat pumps - Insulating buildings

by insulating our homes

by buying heat pumps made as close to home as possible

by buying wood-fired boilers made as close to home as possible

Heat Pumps - Building Insulation 42 words

Bicycles

by buying bicycles made as close to home as possible

A small electric car

by buying a small electric car made as close to home as possible

Bicycles - Small Electric Cars 38 words

Cohesion

Let us stay united and help one another

Images from the graphic novels: World Without End ("Le Monde Sans Fin") and Le paradoxe de l'abondance (The Paradox of Abundance)

Cohesion 41 words

Decentralizing Power: The Only True Democracy

What is peace? If one is a Kantian, one will say it is fusion into a higher entity. The peace of treaties and intertwined interests, eternal peace, the peace which, honestly, never works....

But if one is a Tocquevillian, one will think rather that peace is leaving others in peace.

— You believe that Saint-Firmin's interest is to connect to the rest of the network. You may be right — no doubt you are. But it so happens that the inhabitants of Saint-Firmin judge otherwise. Are they stupid? Possibly. But that stupidity is their own. It seems long matured. It therefore possesses a value in itself. That is why I am in favour of letting Saint-Firmin make its own mistakes. You cannot make people intelligent against their will. You must let them make their own experiments. Who knows? They might surprise us.

— This is about protecting the population.

_— Protection? But this gentleman is perfectly right: they are adults. If they were granted the right to vo

Decentralizing Power: The Only True Democracy 6,931 words

The Destruction of Our Survival Resources by Our Excessive Lifestyles

Your fields stink of acid soils, wrecked by thirty years of filthy phytosanitary products and deep ploughing; soils that turn to dust in summer and mud in winter; soils that are no longer worth anything, that have become nitrate reservoirs and are poisoning our water.

Everyone drinks 70 mg of nitrates per litre of water — that's the truth.

That maize isn't used to feed human beings, and not even the animals. It goes straight to the anaerobic digester. More profitable, eh? Fine model: we put Saudi oil in the tractors, we pour Russian gas and Chinese phosphates on the land, we sow German lab seeds in it, we get fake plants out of it, we let them rot and we sell the whole lot as 100% made-in-France biofuel! It's fossil-fuel fencing of stolen goods, that's what it is.

_And the animals — they don't know the taste of grass, so we might as well feed them transgenic soy grown in Brazil that arrives at Le Havre by whole container ships.

The Destruction of Our Survival Resources by Our Excessive Lifestyles 5,927 words

Droughts and Water Shortages

All life has fallen silent. The 40 degrees have gagged the bocage. Only a brushcutter droning in the distance recalls that humanity is the only species that does not know how to save its energy.

— We can't even drink coffee anymore.

— Above all, we can't water the animals anymore! It's time this nonsense stopped. I can't afford a borehole, myself. The ewes go to the stream. And when there's no stream anymore, like for the past month, what do I do? I draw on the mains!

— If you had backed me up against Jobard we wouldn't be here! He pumped out all our reserves with his drinking troughs and his maize.

_Hanging on the walls of the room, the tourist posters for Norman Switzerland, extolling its green pastures and meandering watercourses, cruelly recall a sweetness of life gone by. How can one not be seized with regret at having neglected those easy pleasures? What was there to complain about in those days, when the herds grazed perpetually fresh grass and one

Droughts and Water Shortages 1,674 words

The End Of Oil

When there is no more energy, when the supply chains are broken and the telecommunications networks cut, when the cars have neither petrol nor battery, what will people think about? Posting an outraged comment on their dead screens? No.

They will think about surviving — the common lot of humanity before the industrial revolution. They will flee the cities like rats. They will want land. Land to live on and to feed themselves.

...

Man has peeled the Earth as one peels an orange. He has removed its zest. All that remains is a pebble with silvery glints.

Of course, to hide this immense fault, we maintain the illusion by pouring on fertilisers every year and growing GMO maize. The city-dwellers drive past and see fields rippling in the wind; they are content. Yields dropping a little? Give it another spray.

_And then one day, in a few decades — that is, one second on the geological scale — there will no longer be enough oil for all their chemistry. Then we will disc

The End of Oil 543 words