It feels a little strange to be writing this here since I intended to cover this subject matter in video form early next week. However the more I converse with people, the more I feel the need to write it.
Lately I’ve been noticing a lot of deeply concerned people. I confess when the US election proceedings commenced, I expected to see a lot of people talking up the merits of their preferred candidates and party. What I am actually witnessing is a lot of terrified people who are freaking out every time a news article surfaces or a debate takes place. People are scared. It’s not a question – it’s a fact.
Now, please, dear Americans. Please know that I am being completely sincere with the sentiment I offer here. You are a very resilient and resourceful people. You need not be as worried as you are. You have survived eight years of George W. Bush. Hell, you survived having J. Edgar Hoover as the director of the FBI. (Anyone who has seen the X-Files: I Want To Believe movie will recall a telling sequence in which Mulder and Scully wait outside offices within the FBI. Mulder looks at the two photographs on the wall. On one side there is a picture of George W. Bush and on the other there is a picture of J. Edgar Hoover. The familiar X-Files theme plays eerily as we wonder momentarily about the greatest paranormal mystery of all; how do mad men end up with power, anyway?)
On election day you will (if you fit the eligibility criteria) have a single vote. This is wonderful. I implore you to exercise your right to vote. But I also invite you to realise that there are limits to your influence. Once the votes are counted there will be an outcome – and it might not be the one you were hoping for. Obviously I don’t know everyone who happens upon this blog, I don’t know your political affiliations and personal inclinations. But if you have strong feelings for one party or the other, you have the potential to be very happy (or very disappointed) at the outcome.
What I want you to know – regardless of what you think of any of the candidates – is that you need to find a way to be okay with the outcome. I can’t have you jumping out of tall buildings. Seriously. This blog has so few readers – I can’t have any of you dying on me.
Obviously the country – indeed the whole world! – are facing some challenges right now. We keep hearing about the ‘credit crunch’ and the bail out deal.
If I could tell the world just one thing it would be that we’re all o.k. And not to worry cause worry is wasteful and useless in times like these.
Er… sorry I was momentarily possessed by the spirit of a singer-songwriter who spent much of her youth in Homer, Alaska. Hey, I wonder if she could see Russia from her house… er, I digress.
The point is everyone needs to take a deep breath and not panic. We need to realise money is a form of exchange – and nothing more! We need to realise that there are people out there who will use our fears – real or imagined – for their own personal, economic and political gains. There are already stock market traders doing very nicely at the expense of more fearful, inexperienced traders. Potentially economic uncertainty might be used as political fodder in the same way that communism and, more recently, terrorism have been. If you are in an emotional frenzy you are very easy to manipulate. It is important that you are not reactionary.
Author of The Four Hour Work Week, Tim Ferris recently brought my attention to the 1943 Disney version of Chicken Little. In this version of the childhood tale, Foxy Loxy uses a psychology textbook to mobilise a fearful and reactionary pen of animals – ultimately to their deaths. This is a far cry from the vision of Disney animations we have now. There are no happy endings to be had here. But, perhaps, that makes the tale more meaningful!
If politics is something that is of interest to you, if it is a great passion for you, then by all means pour your time and energy into it. Just know that that rhetoric is a blackhole. You can pour as much of yourself and your energies into it and it will never fill the void. Again, the influence of even the most charismatic speaker has limits.
Scapegoating is great fun. I shudder to imagine what I would do if I didn’t have ABBA and Christianity to blame the woes of the world on. (End joke.) But if you have an obscene amount of personal debt, if you failed to meet a repayments schedule, if you went out and got something on credit you knew you couldn’t afford – NOW is the time to step up and be responsible. Don’t sit there and bemoan the price of petrol or the state of the economy. THIS is where you have an amazing realm of influence. You can’t control everything that happens politically or economically, but you can control your own actions. You CAN be responsible for yourself. If ever there was a time to learn about living within your means, now would be it.
The Department of Treasury have set up a bizarre interactive website, the Bad Credit Hotel. I doubt there is much here people don’t already know intellectually, though a little revision will help you alter your habits and be more mindful of the implications of credit.
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Great post, John.
Rohans last blog post..Assorted Silliness
I’m not normally one who likes government regulation (hell I voted for Jessie Ventura) but I have to say I think what the housing market needs is a little regulation to protect people from themselves. Like all mortages are a flat 6% fixed, no arms, etc.
To answer your question of “how do mad men end up with power” I might reflect on something I heard them say on Minnesota Public Radio only two days ago, that Most often it is people of OVER-confidence that end up in the roles of a leadership position. It sounds simple enough, but it makes me think of hubris – a blind arrogance that comes before a fall. Oh wait, did I just define Bush?