Okay, that’s a hopeful title. It will take more than one person, even President Obama or Bill Gates, to get the national and global financial system back to health. But each of us can do our part. Here’s my Top 10:
- See prosperity in the world. Look for it and when you see it — a new store or other business in town, for instance — notice it. Acknowledge it. Think: “That’s a good sign.”
- See prosperity in your own life. With the exclusion of perishable groceries and prescription drugs, most of us could get by for weeks or months without buying anything new. See this largess in your closets and pantry and medicine chest. See it in your healthy kids and your happy dog.
- Support the ma and pa. Choose two private businesses that offer a product or service you need, and make a policy of supporting them, at least until we’re all singing “Happy Days Are Here Again,” 21st century style.
- Save. Pay yourself 10%. If your income is diminished right now, make it 5% or 2% but make it something. If you feel that your income is in jeopardy, see if you can save a bit more.
- Give. Your church or the needy or the cause you believe in most ought to get 10%, too. If that’s just too much to stretch to right now, start somewhere — 1% even — with the intention that you’ll build up to 10%. You’ll never feel richer than when you’re giving — and it doesn’t have be a lot to give you this boost.
- Spend. Not insanely. Not frantically. And certainly not fearfully. But when you need something, buy it joyfully, whether you’re shopping at the mall or the Goodwill. Let the flow of this energy that money represents come to you and go through you with joy.
- Talk about other things. We’ve talked about the recession for months. Let’s do something about it and talk about other things: this beautiful spring, Susan Boyle’s voice, what Captain Kirk was really like as a young man.
- Do something real. Make a meal from scratch. Bake bread. Plant flowers. Sew something — either actually make it, or just sew on a button or repair a hem. Give a room a fresh coat of paint (the low-VOC kind for your health and the planet’s). You’ll feel powerful, and everybody knows that “rich and powerful” go together like, well, The Donald and real estate.
- Exercise. Yes: and more than you’re doing now, unless you’re an athlete already. Hit the gym or the Y or the road or the trail or whatever it is that makes you sweat and feel when you’re done like you could do anything — end a recession, even.
- Smile and laugh and have some fun. Enough, enough of being glum all the time. If you’re not in terrible straits, stop waiting for terrible straits to show up. And if you are in terrible straits, you’re probably already finding ways to smile and laugh and have some fun, because when things are really serious, we do this as a survival mechanism. Walking and running and riding a bike are free. So are calling a friend and watching reruns of Seinfeld. A potluck dinner is in anybody’s budget — heck, if things are really tight, have a potluck dinner and just provide the plates and forks and water; nobody will notice. Just have fun! Loosen up. Lighten up. Everything changes. This, too.
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