From Me To We

I have a habit of taking things at the personal level--call it the "micro"--and projecting them to the national level--the "macro." Some could say I'm extrapolating trends from related data and others that I'm making a mountain out of a molehill.

Whatever.

From the Christian PF blog comes a post titled "3 Sure-Fire Ways to Fail Financially." Watch Me go from Me to We: it all applies to both.

1. Spend over 1/3 of your income on a house or an apartment. You can't thrive financially if your basic living expense--rent or mortgage--guts your income. What would be the applicable "cost" at the national level, the We level?

Debt. How much We owe. As it stands right now, Our Island's debt is pegged at $49 billion. And Our income--GDP--is estimated at $64 billion. That means Our "mortgage balance" is about 77% of Our "income."

Now I know your mortgage/salary is not exactly the same as Our collective debt/GDP, but the underlying principle is the same: Too much cost restricts financial growth.  What happens if your mortgage payment rises and your income drops? You increasingly risk losing your property. What happens if Our debt keeps rising--and it rapidly is--as Our economy weakens--as it has for at least 4 years running? We increasingly risk losing Our property. You know it's true.

2. Wait until tomorrow to make changes. Ma-ña-na. The snide sing-song putdown of the  "lazy" by the "go-getter." Nothing happens fast for the procrastinator, the easy-goer, the shuffler, the slow walker. The undisciplined look at change as a burden too heavy to bear. The indifferent can't bother to care enough to change. The greedy--for We are talking about finances here--don't see that their greed undercuts their progress, that they ultimately will pay the piper, or in other terms, karma is a bitch.

But when changes need to be made--and they always need to be made--putting them off costs money. It happens to your wallet when you spend too much and save too little, when you live beyond your means because you won't modify your actions. It happens to Our economy when the government chooses to expand today and ignore tomorrow, when it decides--against Our wishes--that feeding itself is more important than working for Us.  Short-sightedness and laziness fail for Me and We.

3. Stay where you are. Conformity. Starts with a "C", just like cancer. Rots your potential, it does. Just like unbridled ambition can launch you speedily into a wall, conformity can wreck you...but from the inside. For Me, conformity is akin to giving up, to throwing one's hands in the air and saying "I quit trying to be better." What's the point of Life if you just quit?

For We, conformity is giving up, throwing one's hands in the air and whining "But what can We do?" It's the fatalistic bleating of lambs lead to slaughter. Conformity kills the lambs...but it feeds somebody else. That somebody else is where the problem is, for government is Our servant, they are Our work-for-hire and yet Our conformity, Our cancerous yielding, has led them to become Our predators. How can "We" prosper when "We" give up and are fed upon?

From Me to We. Financial prosperity linked to what "Me" does and doesn't do, which defines what "We" can do...and gets away with at Our expense.

The Jenius Has Spoken.