Thoughts on Occupy Wall Street

I need some help understanding something.  My Facebook feed is filled with people shouting with glee over the Occupy Wallstreet protests.  I understand that people are angry about corporate greed.  I understand that people are angry that they can't find a job or their income has been cut drastically.  I understand that people are frustrated and angry right now, period.  I get that because I'm often right there with you - when I'm not taking a deep breath and telling myself that we're all where we're meant to be and this is all happening for a reason.

I understand that people are angry about bank bailouts.  I was livid over that myself.  The whole point of capitalism is that no one is too big to fail.  If you make poor business decisions and your product isn't attractive enough to make people want to purchase it, you'd better find a new business model fast or you're done.  Sink or swim.  When the government undermines capitalism, of course it's not going to work.  It's not capitalism anymore.

But here's what I don't understand, protesters.  The Apple Corporation didn't bail out the banks.  Nordstrom doesn't raise your taxes.  Dairy Queen doesn't tell other corporations that they get a free pass on paying taxes this year.  Who does all of those things?  Your government.  Your government engages in backroom deals with corporations. Your government bails out banks.  Your government artificially lowered interest rates and created the climate that led to the housing bubble.  Your government is the root of the problem.

You're protesting the wrong thing.  If you really want to see change, you should be outside your capitol buildings.  Outside the White House.  You should be screaming about a tax code that allows some to pay nothing - at all levels of income.  You should be angry that your money is being poured into an educational system that fails our kids and prevents our teachers from being able to teach properly.  You should be apoplectic that balancing our budget is not the number one priority of our government.  You should be angry that we're all putting money into Social Security and it won't be there for those of us who are due to retire in 30 years.  Corporations don't do these things.  Your government does.

A corporation is trying to make money.  That's their goal; to make money and hire the best people they can to help them achieve that goal.  When government starts regulating corporations to extremes and makes it unprofitable for them to stay in one place, they move to another.  The same way you might choose to move if you got a more lucrative job offer in another state.  Hence, we have a lot of American corporations going overseas.  Who is making it difficult for these corporations to meet their financial goals while keeping jobs in America?  Your government.

If you are a corporation and you see your competition getting back room deals and tax breaks from the government, you're going to jump in there, too.  It's fairly normal human behavior to not want to fail or let your competitor get an edge.  But who ALLOWS these deals and tax breaks to happen?  Your government.

You're screaming about a symptom instead of the root cause.  Until we have a government that does not allow corporations or unions or any other third party to have an influence on it, we're going to have this kind of massive corruption.  Yes, I said unions.  Because they're in there, too. Like corporations, they also give money to the candidates they like and who will back up their agendas.  And yet there they are on Wall Street, protesting the corporations for doing exactly what they (the unions) do.  It boggles my mind.

I don't object to the protests.  Peaceful protests are our right, as Americans.  I think that we need people speaking out and saying, "No more!".  But say it to the right people.  The people who count on your vote.

Dealing With Your Shit

I hesitated to use a curse word in this post but I couldn't think of another word that really said what I needed to say.  We have reached this point, as a nation.  We all have shit to deal with.  We all have wounds, scars, fears, stumbling blocks, etc.  In my formative years, I had a family model of,  "Sweep that under the rug.  We're going to argue about ten thousand stupid things that don't matter and ignore that giant elephant in the room."  By the time I reached my 20s, I realized that this method wasn't working for me.  I was being medicated for anxiety and depression because I hadn't learned how to process my emotions and life experiences in a healthy way.  I had to face my shit.  Head on.  I chose homeopathy and it has made an enormous difference in how I deal with life.  But that's not the point of this post.  If anyone cares about my experiences with homeopathy, I'll write another post.

The point is that I meet so many people who aren't dealing with their shit.  They don't look at who they really are and what makes them happy.  I'm not talking about being content.  I'm talking about being HAPPY.  Joyous, really.  Knowing in your soul that you are where you are supposed to be, doing what you're supposed to be doing.  I'm still working towards this myself, but I AM working on it.  Why are so many people okay with a life that doesn't fulfill them?  And I recognize that fulfillment is different for every person.  Some people are fulfilled by their careers.  Some by raising their children.  Some by traveling the world while others are happy staying close to home.  Whatever works for you.  Whatever makes YOU happy.

I think a lot of people don't bother to figure out what makes them happy.  It's too scary.  They might have to make some changes.  They might have to take some risks.  They might have to listen to that voice in their heart that says, "This isn't your path."  They might have to simply trust that voice and trusting something that isn't tangible is scary.  I understand fear.  I get not wanting to rock the boat because you have absolutely no idea where the pieces are going to fall or how the hell you're going to pick them up and put them back together once they HAVE fallen.  I've been there too many times.  And you know what?  It always works out; usually for the better and often in ways I've never dreamed of.  The Universe is pretty cool like that.

Now, what got me on this kick?  I've been watching the political antics of our country and all I hear and see is shit.  Shit that no one wants to deal with.  We can't let the economy collapse and naturally correct itself so we'll print more money and devalue our currency while prices inflate.  We can't tell people, "No, we can't give you that for free anymore.  The party's over.  Figure out your own shit."  We can't create a responsible financial plan to get our country out of debt because... well, I can't actually figure out that "because".  I have no idea why getting ourselves out of debt isn't the next logical step to everyone from the President down to the average citizen.  Oh wait, because we don't want to deal with our shit.  The failing social programs, the restrictions and taxes on small businesses, the crushing environmental protection laws, politicians who are more interested in re-election than actually doing what is right... this is OUR shit.  We created this with our crazy dances around all the elephants.

If we don't look in the mirror and deal with our own shit, we reflect more shit out and create it all around us.  And here we are.  A few decades of, "Shhh... don't talk about the elephant in the room.  Talk about everything else that's a result of the elephant and pretend that the symptoms are really the problem."  Kind of like, "Take this pill for your depression but don't look at what's really depressing you and deal with your shit."  Yes, it would have sucked to let the big banks fail but it would have been a short-term hurt.  Not the long-term hurt it's turning out to be.  Yes, it will suck in the short term to go to a flat percentage tax system (where EVERYONE pays - not just 50% of us) but in the long run, we would have a massive amount of economic growth.  For starters, companies wouldn't have to deal with pages and pages of tax code which would cut their costs and enable them to lower prices while maintaining their profits.  Plus an additional 153,503,275 American citizens actually paying what they owe for using our roads, schools, hospitals, police, fire, prisons, etc. would be a nice chunk of change.

It's time to deal with our shit.  It's time to get involved.  Stop voting for people just because they have a R or D beside their name.  Look at the track record of people up for re-election.  Are they doing what you want them to do?  Do you even know what you want them to do?  Figure it out.  If a candidate doesn't have a political track record yet (challenging the incumbent) then look at their business or career track record.  What have they done?  What they say they will do is all fine and dandy but what have they DONE?  That's the important bit.  Kind of like dating a cheater - he/she says they'll never do it again but when their record shows that they've done it 6 times before, it's time to pull your head out of the sand and tell them that you're done.  They don't get your vote or your heart, whichever the case may be.  Leave them to deal with their own shit.

So that's what I had to say this morning.  I tried to keep this simple and digestible to the average person who doesn't get as into politics as I do.  But  my main point isn't political so much as that we need to deal with our shit as individuals and as American citizens.  Because the shit is about to hit the fan and it isn't going to be pretty when it does.

Perfectionism

Here I am.  36 years old, no career path to speak of, not married, no kids.  What have I done with my life so far?  Well, I've traveled a lot.  I'm an Anglophile and have managed to visit England 6 times in the last 17 years.  I have a BA in Music Therapy that I've never done much with.  I've taught Kindermusik, managed an office, worked in day cares and special education classrooms.  I've been a private nanny, a Tomatis practitioner and a retail saleswoman.  In a family of people who pick a career path and stick to it come hell or high water, I think I might be my parents' despair.

Am I lazy?  Easily distracted?  Do I quit when the going gets tough?  Probably a little of each.  But it's bigger than that and no one was more shocked than I when I realized the truth. You see, I'm a perfectionist.  If I can't do it right the first time, I'm not interested in it.  Even starting this blog.  I tried to start it almost a year ago and I got so caught up in finding the perfect name for it that I couldn't actually make it to the blogging part of the blog.  I'm pretty sure that I was a fairy in some other incarnation of myself because I seem to think I have a magic wand that I've temporarily mislaid somewhere.  But once I find it, I'll give it a wave and *poof*!  Everything will be the way it's "supposed" to be.

I've been getting nudged by my intuition to just write something for over a year now.  ANYTHING.  Just post something on a blog and get it started.  It doesn't have to be perfect.  It doesn't have to be read by millions of people.  I just need to take that one first step.  So that's what this is.  My first step.  Will it lead anywhere?  I have no idea.  Do I hope that someday I'll make enough money writing that I can quit one (or all) of the three jobs I currently have?  Hell yes.  But for now, I can't even think that far ahead.  I just have to post this one blog.

How often does our desire to do something "perfectly" keep us from really experiencing and enjoying a moment, a day or even our entire lives?  Whether it's moving to New York to try to make it on Broadway, a project at work, or creating the "perfect" holiday dinner - when we get obsessed with not being good enough or not having all the "pieces" in place yet, we sabotage ourselves from really enjoying the experience.  It's kind of like training for a marathon.  You wouldn't expect to go from a 50 pounds overweight, couch-dwelling, potato chip addict to a svelte trained athlete who could run 5 gajillion miles.  Or however many miles a marathon is.  You can probably tell that I fall into the couch-dwelling category at this point.  In any case, my point is that you train.  You take baby steps.

So here it is.  My first baby step.