On Money

Well, here we are again after a lovely, but long break. I have good intentions to write and I have a show coming up next week, so that's the excuse that I'm giving. We have been without our normal daycare since January and my little buddy doesn't see the need for this blog. I have a few minutes so here I am.

I woke up very early this morning and was thinking about money. I then remembered a friend saying to me on Sunday that she wishes we could convince people that money just wasn't that important. Then I saw a post on FB from Neale Donald Walsch about the same subject. Coincidence? I think not.

Here's my bit about money. I dislike that most of us in our society and in our culture specifically, have made our lives about getting and spending money. It's the way we run our lives. It's the way that we define the state of our nation: 'are we buying things?' Keep the money flowing or we're dead in the water.

For me it has been a great pre-occupation for most of my life. It dictated my success. If I had a lot, I was successful. If I did not, I was not. But to be honest, I've never really had a lot of money. But I suppose that it's all relative. Personally, I've never made more than $45K in a year. I certainly don't make that much now. In fact I make just a bit less than I did when I started working when I was in my early 20's. It's very easy to look at my life by those standards and say that I have failed; miserably.

But I feel more successful than I have ever been in my life. I have a great schedule. I teach at a community college 2 days and nights a week, I run a business doing something that I love and I get to spend 3 days a week with my son during this precious time that he is not in school. By THOSE standards, I am blessed beyond measure.  So I choose the measurement by which I judge my life.

However, I struggle to make ends meet...WE struggle to make ends meet. We have times of robbing Peter to pay Paul and sometimes just praying to God that everything works out for us to keep our house and our business running. So far, so good. My best friend said a few months back that he works very hard for the money he makes. I countered with, "I work very hard for the money I DON'T make." I do. I'm sure I work about the same amount as everyone. I'm sure there are people all over working 2 and even three jobs to make ends meet. There are certainly people who work harder than I do. AND some people don't even call what I do work. For those people, I say, "mounting a theatre production with a cast of 15-55 with a staff of two and a few lovely helpers is hard, mutha-bucking work."

But the Center is my calling. It's what I have been put on the planet to do; work with kids and hopefully inspire them to always live from their creative center. If I did anything else on the planet, I wouldn't be fulfilling my potential; I wouldn't be on the right path. I know that is the truth. I would have thrown in the towel long ago were it not. But it's funny to me that it does not pay my mortgage on a consistent basis. I find myself at points of my life wishing that I'd been something else...something else that paid the damn bills. But nothing else has ever called me like theatre...the way we do theatre. It is my ministry (service) to my part of the garden.

And that brings me to my point. It's bothersome to me that we live in a society that looks at what I do and does not value it or more to the point, REWARD it with a decent wage. I do not have anything against the rich at all. More power to them. But I don't want to be rich. I want to be able to pay the mortgage on my middle class/blue collar home. I want my family to be secure with basic healthcare. I want exactly the same stuff that I have now without the constant fear that if I screw up, I'll lose it all in a second. I'd like a vacation that lasts for more than 2-3 days every 5 years or so.

So, as I said when I was in college....I WISH MONEY DIDN'T EXIST. I want to live in the world of Star Trek where people just do what they are called to do and provide service to each other without having to pay the damn bills. I'm just sick of it. We live in a world and in a technological age that if we put our minds to it we could wipe out any type of NEED in our culture. There's no dearth of food on the planet. There's not lack of materials or 'know-how' to build a self sustaining community OFF the GRID. Maybe a commune is in my cards eventually? Who knows? I know that I do sound like a liberal hippie type, but it's my truth.

We're in such trouble economically in this country and it seems like the only thing we're trying to do is figure out how to fix a problem by putting a band-aid on it. It's like giving a person who eats like shit all the time, some drug so they don't feel bad. When changing their eating habits would solve their problem for good.  Is there no one talking about how America could go 'rogue' and just decide to be self sustaining? To be a nation  that simply decides to wipe out homelessness and hunger and poor health and let everyone live a comfortable life?

Sure there would be a period of unrest as those who constantly need to compare and compete would go absolutely nuts, but eventually the norm would be that everyone has a home, has food to eat. If we took care of the necessities, then we could focus on our individual callings. Some would choose to serve as: doctors, actors, singers, designers, etc. I've heard the argument that no one would want to cook for other people; no one would want to pick up trash if they had the choice. You know what? If I only focused on how I could serve, I would totally pick up trash. I love getting dirty. It just seems to me that there must be a who new paradigm out there where our focus is on one of service rather than competition and CASH.

Would there be people who would exploit the system? Yes. What do we do with them? I don't know. Provide education. It would take a generation or two or five to develop, tweek and finally normalize a new way of life, but looking at all we've done as a species on the planet so far, I just know it's in us to create a better world. Kum ba ya!

And so for now, please notice that I have advertisers on my blog. I have to pay the bills! Keep on. Let's keep the conversation going!
Blessings for now....and don't you dare call me a socialist! Hell, call me a socialist! Labels are labels. I want to live a life of peace and service to my fellow man/woman following the call of my heart. We may not reach the ending, but we can start. Let's scrap the whole mess and build new!