Crisis? What Crisis?

Your blog posts are always so full of energy and positive affirmation, which is very much lacking currently in much of the doom and gloom of the financial crisis, so your vitality is very refreshing! said Yang-May (she of the fabulous Fusion View blog), in an e-mail a couple of weeks ago.

There are several reasons I’m staying positive amidst the global gloom:

1. I rarely read newspapers, watch TV or pay much attention to what the traditional media has to say,
2. I know there’s nothing I can do on a global scale to impact “the crisis,”
3. I know there’s LOTS I can do on an individual level to make positive change in the world around me.

Some people might say I’m an ostrich, burying my head in the sand in the face of inevitable rack and ruin. Maybe that’s true. I don’t know.

What I do know is that I don’t have any personal debt. I’ve never liked borrowing, I don’t like to owe anybody anything - so much so that I pay off my credit card IN ADVANCE. Yep, that may be stupid. Probably doesn’t make much sense at all. But it works for me.

I think it’s kinda' silly for us to expect governments and financial institutions to be fiscally responsible when we can’t manage our own money. It’s hardly surprising that the world is experiencing a financial crisis, when millions of people in the Western and “Western-ised” world are in deep personal debt. Why would our financial institutions and our governments behave any differently than we behave ourselves?

We have no one to blame for this mess but ourselves. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out that there’s something desperately wrong with a system in which 10 per cent of the population enjoys 90 per cent of the wealth, and billions of people live in misery without adequate food, water or shelter.

Greed is a terrible thing - it kills more than all other diseases combined.

So that’s it. My rant.

Whatever happens, I intend to focus on my own personal capacity to make positive change in myself, and thus hopefully to positively impact the lives of those with whom I come in contact, and the environment in which I live.

That’s really all anyone can do under the circumstances. Other than listen to The Eagles. They believe, as I do, that when the proverbial s—t hits the fan, it’s time to choose to be a hero (in whatever small way one can be), rather than a victim

 

 

"Get Over It"

I turn on the tube and what do I see
A whole lotta people cryin' "Don't blame me"
They point their crooked little fingers at everybody else
Spend all their time feelin' sorry for themselves
Victim of this, victim of that
Your momma's too thin; your daddy's too fat

Get over it
Get over it
All this whinin' and cryin' and pitchin' a fit
Get over it, get over it

You say you haven't been the same since you had your little crash
But you might feel better if I gave you some cash
The more I think about it, Old Billy was right
Let's kill all the lawyers, kill 'em tonight
You don't want to work, you want to live like a king
But the big, bad world doesn't owe you a thing

Get over it
Get over it
If you don't want to play, then you might as well split
Get over it, Get over it

It's like going to confession every time I hear you speak
You're makin' the most of your losin' streak
Some call it sick, but I call it weak

You drag it around like a ball and chain
You wallow in the guilt; you wallow in the pain
You wave it like a flag, you wear it like a crown
Got your mind in the gutter, bringin' everybody down
Complain about the present and blame it on the past
I'd like to find your inner child and kick its little ass

Get over it
Get over it
All this bitchin' and moanin' and pitchin' a fit
Get over it, get over it

Get over it
Get over it
It's gotta stop sometime, so why don't you quit
Get over it, get over it