Well our New Year's Resolution is generating some thoughtful comments and conversations....I'm not sure if people check back to see the comments so ( even though this may be bad blogging etiquette) I've copied my friend Trudy's comment and posted it below.
Julie - your Mom asks good questions. My first reaction to your resolution was "all things in moderation", but I think your exceptions to the rule are good and trust that you and Mark will know when to 'break' resolutions for the good of the family and individual. Secondly, and this ties into your Mom's worries about the economy, I think we need to augment the concept of sustainability with resilience. We know that there are good times and bad, happy and sad, extravagance and penny-pinching. The businesses, organizations and governments of our society need to be constructed with threads that make them resilient, not just efficient. As a society we aren't talking about this, or any new models, and I find that troubling. Our government seems to want us to return to the lavish over-spending many indulged in to jumpstart the economy, and our economic structures count our lack of new housing starts, failure to return to living beyond our means, and new penchant for saving as evidence of continued recession. Yes, we are still in a situation I describe as "failure to thrive", but we need new behaviors and processes, new economic measures, and new structures (and jobs) within our society. We need to transform ourselves into a healthy society before we will thrive. A society that relies on the selling of bling and trinkets or the flipping of houses is not one that is healthy. one. Lets look at the core needs of humans -- can we meet those? Then, lets meet the core needs of Earth, without which humans cannot survive. We need to be creative, innovate new products, services and processes that create new jobs and economic successes for our economy while fostering life on Earth. If we can foster quality life, then I think we will be better able to weather some of the crises that are sure to come. The old ways don't work now, and won't in the future. And we aren't making good use of the time we have to change.
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I am very impressed with Trudy's feedback and her point of view. I will say that in my opinion, the state of the economy is because people aren't making good choices, not because government is making people make bad choices. The real culprit may actually be businesses playing on the weaknesses of people- enticing them to purchase things that go way above what they "need" or can "afford". I am not happy with much of our government's choices or decisions, but people aren't buying government "stuff", they're buying what businesses are making. And the average person isn't making good choices. Whether this is a call for more/better education, or something else....it doesn't feel like we have anyone to blame other than ourselves for this mess.
I do think she is absolutely right in pointing out that many of the metrics we use to measure a healthy economy are based solely on whether "more" is being sold, and that some new or different metrics would be better indicators. Once again though, getting the average American to be OK with less, is a big hurdle to overcome.
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