Viewing Life and Money Objectively

It's easy to get depressed. Especially when you listen to the news or read the best selling books about the collapsing economy, environmental toxins, terrorist threats, inefficient government, pandemic viruses, and multitude of scams and ripoffs that threaten us every day. But it doesn't make sense to dwell on the negative. Not only does it not make sense but most of this negative stuff are exaggerations of the media to get and keep our attention and justify their jobs.

I mean you can find tons of things that are wrong with the world, with your friends and family, and with yourself . Nothing seems to work the way you think it should and the dreams of childhood are quickly squelched by the realities of making a living and having to take care of yourself.

However, there is a lot of good in the world presently and more importantly there is a lot of good stuff to look forward to. Most importantly much of the negative stuff isn't real. It is our interpretation of what is happening. Yes, you can create negative scenarios and spin events to paint a scary picture. But life, especially in the United States is pretty good. Most of the things that upset us or trouble us only do so because we have unrealistic expectations. If we would just accept the fact that we all have weaknesses and flaws and learn to be more accepting and understanding of the truth of our rather humorous condition rather than complaining and judging, the world would appear much brighter.

One of our major areas of concern is money. However,if we are honest and objective, whether we are rich or poor all our lives are pretty much the same. It is true that if you have money you can eat in better restaurants, drive nicer cars, have bigger houses, and go on more luxurious vacations. It does seem, I admit, that money makes life easier but most of the things that we do that take up our time are not dependent on money. They are dependent on our attitudes and our inner state. All of us, no matter how rich we are have to spend all our time with ourselves and our thoughts. This is the great equalizer.

Everyone has to live with their own thoughts, go to the bathroom, sleep, and deal with other people. No matter how much money you have you can only sit in one chair in one part of your house. If you love your chair and are content in your space no amount of money can improve this. No amount of money can make a dish of ice cream with chocolate syrup any more delicious.

All the money in the world cannot give you more pleasure from reading, surfing the internet, listening to music, watching your favorite sports team, holding your child or grandchild, or expressing your opinion about any subject that interests you. It is very hard to gain a healthy and realistic perspective about money. We are so conditioned to believe that having money is equated with happiness. And when we don't have much money it can be especially hard to feel good about ourselves and our lives.

I've had periods in my life when I've had a lot of money, much more than I needed. It was nice. But mostly what it did was enable me to realize that having money is a little overrated. The problem is not with money. There is nothing wrong with having money, spending money, and having nice things. The problem is what we have to sacrifice to get it and how much of our identity and sense of self worth is dependent on whether we have money or not.

My main point is that life is good. It actually is terrific. It's is the best thing that we know of and beats any other alternative. Why be depressed? Why let the creations of the media or others get you down? Try to find a way to live each day appreciating what you have and doing the things that make you happy. Remember what Socrates said, "Enjoy yourself, its later than you think."

Reversing Financial Momentum

There were 20 criminal proceedings announced today against banks, bank officials, and others who received money from the TARP (Toxic Asset Relief Program). These criminal activities included insider trading, bank fraud, mortgage fraud, illegal payouts, and other illegal activities associated with the seven hundred fifty billion dollar bank bailout program. When gigantic sums of money are thrown around some people get greedy and grab whatever they can. Are we surprised by this? I don't think so.

What is funny to me is how critical the financial pundits are of the governments attempts to help us out of the financial mess. They view these criminal actions as evidence of the governments inability to manage any large scale financial program. They have quickly forgotten that what caused these problems was the inability of the financial sector to manage its business profitably from the get-go.

There are debates raging throughout the media today about whether we should blame unfettered capitalism or the lack of government regulation for our financial problems. Are we moving towards socialism? Will we destroy incentive? These arguments are totally meaningless and don't address the real problem. The problem is complex and is a combination of the types of people who gravitate towards positions of power, especially financial power and the cyclical nature of our society. What this means is that as societies progress they continue to overuse and abuse the systems that have enabled them to prosper.

What has enabled the existing system to prosper was the increasing desire for more material possesssions, the creation of complicated investment techniques that produced money without requiring labor, and the increased dependence on credit to finance all of these abuses. The bottom line is that we become addicted to what feels good and do not consider the consequences of escalating this addicition. There are those who did not participate in these out of control activities and were more balanced in their lives. But there are two many of us who bought into the dream and many who were completely out of control both as consumers and as greedy beneficiaries of the results of our addictions.

We can no longer depend on mainstream thinking to bail us out. There are no real bailouts without real change. What has to happen now is a fundamental change in the way we relate to money, materialism, and what we want in our lives. This will require continued significant suffering or a Black Swan event that we cannot imagine. A Black Swan is an event that could not be predicted, that changes the nature of our world, and then is explained afterwards by the experts using logic as to why it should have been predicted.

What I think is needed now is the creation of a movement whose primary goal is to take a break from implementing any new programs or initiatives in the financial arena. All advertising and promoting should be stopped. All purchasing except for necessities should be postponed All talking, debating, and politicking in the media and on the internet should be ended for at least a month or two. Maybe if we quieted our minds and had a little time to work on our personal health and improving our relationships with friends and family without spending much money we would be able to see things more clearly. I am open to other suggestions. We need to do something different, though.