Responding Responsibly

It's Monday again, and another full week on the job lies ahead for John and Mary; one day down, four more to go and then, finally - another weekend. It's nearly bedtime; John and his wife had put the kids in bed and sat on the sofa to watch the news before going to bed. The news was going from bad to worse; foreclosures were setting new records, inflation was up, and unemployment rates were up to over six percent - the highest level in almost a decade. Jobs were hard to find and those who were employed - even though at a place they didn't want to work - were uncertain and insecure - as employers fought to make a profit. The only good news was that gas prices had dropped from over four dollars a gallon down to three-fifty, but that was still over a dollar per gallon more than they had been paying just a year before. John and Mary were both "working parents," and one or the other of them dropped their two-year-old off at the daycare center and then took the two sons to school, then had to reverse the process at the end of the work day. The two incomes were necessary just to be able to meet all of their overhead expenses each month, and they weren't really "meeting them" - the number of those they had to pay late each month was increasing. Deep inside both of these good and well-intentioned parents resided a subtle but ever-present feeling of a life without any real hope; their was the usual passive hope, the kind many people have that somehow one of the two candidates running against each other in the election will come up with some solutions that will help, but they almost knew for a certainty that changing national leaders wasn't going to directly filter down to the struggling individual. The fact that they - John and Mary - were going to have to come up with their own solutions haunted them, and they couldn't see what they possibly could do that would offer any direct and significant solution, other than to wait for things to get better. After all, everyone they knew was going through the same challenges; everyone seemed to be using their credit cards to pay for things that were both needed and wanted. Now, imagine yourself being in similar circumstances; imagine, if you can, having each paycheck be the same, every two weeks, and every month, and any hope of the next raise still being nearly a year away. And, even when the raise came, they knew it would be for no more than three percent, and with inflation going up four percent, they were actually getting one percent "poorer" every year. You are not in this circumstance, or it may be more correct to say that even if you are, there's something you can do about it; you have products that people need; you have a message of hope that millions of people so desperately want and need. You are a voice of reason amid all of the hopelessness, and you cannot only change your life, but you can change the lives of many others in the process. A ship is meant to sail, not sit in the safety of the harbor, so don't just sit and listen to how bad it is, take action now, before the world moves in upon you. Get out the spray can and go after the bugs and the weeds of circumstance before they get to the roots of your future harvest.