I am thankful for…

…our current circumstances. Rather than ignore the current economic problems, I choose to acknowledge this elephant in the living room during our Thanksgiving holiday.

We are bombarded with headlines like “What will fix our economic problems?” It is absolutely silly. The recession is the solution to the problem of the asinine acts of American government, corporations, and consumers. There is no galactic lottery that our country can win. We have to play by the rules of the game that we started. No person or government can perpetually spend more money than they earn. Such behavior can only be temporary and always leads to self inflicted unpleasantness.

I truly am thankful for our recession because it should help cleanse our government and society of self destructive behavior. We are now forced to return to thinking and doing things in the way that made the United States a prosperous country in the first place.

While the entertainment industry uses industrial psychology to lull us into vegging out at the cost of paying attention to advertisements all day long, it is a blessing for this economic crisis to wake us up and beckon us back to reality. We have become a nation of the most dependent people on earth. Dependent on:

• employment
• inefficient transportation
• inefficient sources of energy
• new clothes to make us look good
• new gadgets to make us feel good
• excessive amounts of food to comfort us
• the government to regulate everything we do

I see this economic crisis as a silent, involuntary re-declaration of independence. The illusion of safety and security being provided by employment is torn apart. People will learn how to create and sell valuable products and services to enrich themselves rather than an employer. As money is tight, sources of efficient energy and transportation will be embraced. Many of these sources have been there all along, but it sometimes takes household budgetary fear to try new things.

Many people will be forced to disrupt their pattern of indulging in food, gadgets, and clothes as means to find happiness… only to discover these indulgences are sometimes a source of unhappiness.

While we may let the government attempt to solve our problems in the short run, that is a path that eventually leads to the same undeniable fact that was the driving force behind the founding of our country: Wealth, safety, and freedom cannot be provided by any government… it can only be provided by the people themselves.

So become independent. Let’s turn this whole thing around. Over the past 30 years our population has consumed the natural and economic resources of the world. We’ve destroyed much of the wealth, prosperity, and resources of our existence… now let’s become a population that creates wealth and prosperity. The prosperity we desire can’t be won or handed to us – it must be created. Be thankful for the opportunity to be a part of what will go down in history as one of the most magnificent periods of mankind.