Crisis and the Will to Change

The current state of the economy as been a massive lesson for a lot of people, including myself. The lesson? In real-time, all people and businesses are interdependent and interconnected.

I used to think of businesses as separate, independent entities that had the power to determine their own direction and path, based on management team choices. Not so, the truth is more complex than that simple notion or thought. Each business depends on every other business in a ceaseless web. I think this is one reason that it would be disastrous to let the auto companies fall. We think that things are bad now? Put a million people out of a job before the end of the year and you will see a total meltdown in ways that we could not have possibly imagined.

Because of the interdependence between businesses, ethics and principles really matter. This reveals the second lesson. Businesses and people must deal honestly with each other. If you apply for a home loan, you have to be honest with yourself, family and bank that you can in fact fulfill the financial obligation. The bank offering the loan, needs to stop with all the hidden fees and numeric manipulation and realize that there is room in capitalism for ethics, professional and social responsibility. It was in fact a lack of honesty which caused the collapse.

The third lesson is that we must *really* change our thinking and behavior, when it comes to business practices and how we consume. It would be really useful to understand that "Consumerism" is not Nirvana. If we obsess on too much on objects and put them before everything else, that's a problem. Why? because the object, our stuff becomes more important that the people that we have opportunities to interact with. We can become emotionally isolated and unable to recognize the connection which we have with each other.

Mind you, I'd not saying that it's not okay to have the iPod, the house, the car, etc... But what I am saying is that we purchase the one that is within our means and budget.

About 5 years ago, a bank offered my wife and I the "opportunity," to extend and "double" the amount that we qualified for to buy a house. At the same time, the housing prices just seemed insane to both of us. Though our personal financial situation was stable, we declined the so-called "opportunity," because when the interest rate changed, we didn't know what our collective financial standing would be. Most of my friends told me I was stupid. Three of those same friends has lost their home, because they went beyond what they could actually do and took a gamble that the value of their how would continue to increase.

The example is not to say I'm smart and they where dumb. The example is about having a clarity of mind and being realistic.

Now that we all recognize that we are in this financial crisis together, we have some important choices that we are going to have to make. One is to act in a way that our tendency for buy, buy, buy doesn't put us further in the hole, or find some new patterns of behavior that lead to having the ability to sustain our life and our family in a sane way. Personally, I find it more rewarding to look into your eyes and heart rather than what you or I have in our wallets.

As a final note, I been told that the Chinese character for crisis can also be translated as "opportunity for change." We can use this time to redirect ourselves and make our lives much stronger.

Namaste',

Jaye Morris, Curator
digitalZENDO