I Need Your Help

10 Oct 2009, 22:20

If I am you and you are me and we are millions and millions of unemployed people and growing, then I have a question for you/myself:

What are we doing?

We. That’s the word I’m concerned about. The value of the exchange of goods and services flows around the world in miniscule increments of time but nearly unimaginable bundles of wealth. We own the system we worked for, whether we know it or believe it or not. We have the solutions to the problems that make us feel trapped in the system. We own our behaviours. We are responsible for our actions and reactions. We have no one to blame for wherever we are or whatever we’re doing.

I, if I am you, look for the solution to the problem of what to do next, knowing as I do that I have unresolved issues that will remain with me while I solve the problem at hand. There is no perfect life but there are plenty of balanced lives with happiness a primary component of the life in balance.

The solution I seek is one where happiness meets peace while I’m in control of the life I own in the system I own with you. It’s seeing that instant gratification needs that are catered to by the marketing and advertising around you, both in straightforward business terms and in unintentional jealousy/envy terms (e.g., “keeping up with the Joneses”), can be overcome when we treat each other as responsible adults who seek viable solutions.

It’s not about being green or saving the environment. It’s not about giving up or sacrificing. It’s about you and your family. It’s about you. It’s about me.

The solution starts with an honest evaluation of your/our lives, our families, our backgrounds, our strengths, our weaknesses, our powers, our gifts, our humour, our sadness, our future.

The solution continues with believing we own the system and then figuring out how to put the system to valuable use in our lives in every moment, never once saying “it’s out of my hands” or “that’s not my job.”

The solution requires volunteers. The solution requires blood, sweat and tears. The solution includes setbacks. We’ll fall down BUT we’ll have each other to pick us up one at a time. We don’t have to have the right answer all the time because we can rely on our combined knowledge and capabilities to examine a problem and find the most viable solution, always keeping in mind that no one solution satisfies everyone all the time.

I need your help. I am looking at the problem of a jobless recovery [I don’t see a problem but I use the word to describe my analysis of the current situation in global economics]. As most of the major world economic centers get closer to reporting positive growth (as if “negative growth” is a real term! but who likes to use the word “shrinkage” or “contraction”?), many of us will still have no economic strength of our own in comparison to what we had or what we wanted. What we had or what we wanted is not necessarily what we have to have or have to want – it’s often what we allowed ourselves to believe because of the influence of those around us.

Therefore, here’s where I need your help. I need your help in redefining what it is that I really want. Do I really want a house full of items I rarely use? Do I really want a life where I’m running back and forth between activities that I don’t fully enjoy? Do I want to walk through life and ignore most of the people around me?

I’m standing at the edge of a ravine and can’t get to the other side. I can build a bridge halfway across the divide but need you to build the other half so we can connect the halves where I have what you need and you have what I need.

It doesn’t look easy but when we put our bodies into motion we make it easy with every movement in every moment.

I’m looking at the solutions we provide each other but I only have one pair of eyes connected to one brain that searches this giant computer system composed of seven billion people connected one way or the other. Our planet is small and sometimes our voices are very tiny. Someone out there has a piece of the puzzle that completes the image that describes the solution to unemployment. Actually, more than one person has a piece. Some of us have the same piece - when we combine our voices, we reach out to complete the solution like fans at a sporting event shouting the same name over and over.

Often, after burying my thoughts in the words of others, I see a solution that’s off-kilter, filtered through a funhouse prism. I haven’t found enough words about the constipated bank loan problem or the rising unemployment problem to give me a solution worth laughing about. I’ve only heard complaints that enough is not being done.

I don’t care that Bernanke or Summers or the IMF has firm control of the situation and is ready to take charge when things get worse. I want to hear from those who have put viable, positive solutions into place. I’m more interested in fire prevention than firefighting. I’m more interested in positive behavior reinforcement than crowd control. Action, not reaction.

I wish I had the solution to give you, but in this case the solution is in your hands and thoughts. You may be five years old or 105 years old. You may be an illiterate field worker or an academic superstar. You may have no expertise in the area of research you studied but you found a working solution.

The solution I offer is you. In doing so, I am exposing my greatest weakness, which is not wanting to admit I don’t have all the answers. It’s like admitting defeat, only I’m actually admitting you are my victory. My worst fear is my greatest triumph. I have felt mental pain and anguish these last few days because the solution, this blog entry, is the last thing I wanted to write. I’ve always been able to find a way out of a trap. In this case, I found out that you are the one who has to open the trap for me, no easy admission for a person who believes that self-sufficiency is the number one reason that life exists, due to self-preservation. Don’t know why that is since I rationally know that no one lives on an island and space is not a true vacuum.

Enough for now. I’ve got to mull on this a few more days and let you solve the problem(s) for me while I keep my mouth shut about them. You’ll find the solution(s) when you least expect them, like going to the market for bread and finding a delicious, nutritious fruit you’d never seen before, changing your diet forever and making your family stronger because you happened to glance in a different direction while talking with a neighbour at the bread booth.