Harassing my soul
Harassing my soul
I have a dear friend who has the most colorful use of language. Usually when you here colorful in terms of the way someone speaks you think of someone who does a lot of swearing but that’s not the case with her, it’s all in the phrasing and the descriptions. One of my favorites is when she speaks of someone who is really getting on her nerves, her last nerve she says that the person is harassing her soul. I love that and as such am going to borrow that. I don’t have people per say that are harassing my soul I’d say that there are conditions, events, thoughts and things in my sight that right now are absolutely harassing my soul.
The Economy
Is not something that I talk about much in the social media, web or any public space because I’m not an economic expert but I do work a job, I do contribute to the economy. My work for the most part is alright. I don’t have a problem with it what I do have a problem with is the relationship between leadership and individual contributors and the failure of leadership to take stock and take responsibility for all that ails this economy has me vexed. There are few, but not many who take responsibility, admit wrong, or seek the counsel and ideas of the common/the masses of us who do the actual grinding to find solutions to overcome a crisis. For the most part, the individual contributor is the first to bear the brunt of leadership failure. In the economic climate we live in now, there is an automatic out. Things just aren’t the way they used to be companies don’t sell, tax receipts are lower and offering plates are going wanting. So now expectations are lowered, salaries and benefits are lowered for those who remain workers in the economy and we are to grin and bear it, because in times as difficult as these we are fortunate and blessed to be getting a paycheck instead of an unemployment check. The problem is that the economy is not exactly dead. Capitalism is definitely not dead. We aren’t living in a barter system, we’re living in a C.R.E.A.M. system. Everything that you need to get and I mean need like food, gas, electricity, heating/air require cash. Earnings diminish but the bills remain the same and even increase and the ends that you finally got to meet a few years ago have now fissured and are growing further apart.
There’s been studies/statistics that show economic downturns often spur an increase in entrepreneurship. That may have been true during previous boom and bust times but not so much now. The new normal is that individuals and families struggle longer, great ideas for new businesses are met with big fat NOs from big fat banks who want to hold on to their cash. I believe that in the new normal, some will not ever recover. What happens then?
America is the land of the free and the home of the brave, but as the economy continues to squeeze, as politicians continue to lie, as corporations continue to steal and demand more from their workers for less, our level of bravery is tested and our freedom really begins to not feel as such because our choices have narrowed. We become limited, we become survivalists, we become bitter, we become something other than our normally creative, competent selves.
I see how the collapse has affected me personally I see how it has affected my community and all indications is that the dip, recession ne collapse, is a runaway train. How can it be stopped? How do we all get back on our feet? Will those who haven’t fallen help those who have? These are the things that are harassing my soul.
