A Round To-It

Here it is, the rare and sought after Round TO-IT, the one thing that will make your life complete and productive and it is yours “free” for reading this rant!

Don’t we wish it were that simple?

We live in complete overwhelm at all times, it is amazing when we make the bed and do the dishes without the fear of someone judging us, or fear of dysentery… What the hell happened to us? How did we get to this place and how can we get some relief?

This is where self-help gurus will offer some meme-based philosophy about taking control of your life. The issue with that is it does not address the multitude of issues that are bombarding you, creating fear, waking you up and constantly overwhelming you.

Fear of:

• Making rent

• Buying food

• Paying the utilities

• Repairing your car

• Making the bus

• Impressing someone you fancy

• Having peace at work

• Losing your job, which you don’t do well to start with

• Understanding anything

• Politics

• Media

• No time to even think!

To name a very few…

Addressing Lies, damn lies, and statistics…

Less than 20% of Americans make over $100,000 per year (around 18%). The cost of living “comfortably” in metropolitan areas averages around $300,000 per year for a family of four. See the problem? Living in comfort means having all the bills covered, savings, and the ability to have leisure time. While consensus, at least in the people reporting at the top of Google, is mixed it seems to underreport the amount of people who live paycheck to paycheck or are one paycheck from homelessness. The reported number for last year from Bank of America is around 39%, prior numbers from government sources had it around 46%. The problem with statistics is the ability to manipulate the data by looking at certain factors and not asking better questions. Questions like, what does it cost and how much do people make, as opposed to who has some savings and not what did they need to give up having the savings? Or how many people are not being counted because they have fallen off the lists. The point is that whatever the reported numbers are they fall far short of truth, and most people are struggling, and at risk.

Why are we talking about this?

Back to the Round TO-IT

One of the effects of constant overwhelm and risk is that nobody can spare a moment to look around and see the others that share their plight, see the reasons that the plight exists, and even if they took the time to search their phones and resources for information they would get meme philosophy and unfounded data, news and other media that tops Google, Facebook, Twitter and most “news” sources.

People close down all aspects of life that are not solely survival based, they look for any way to ease the suffering, get relief. A Round TO-IT will never be enough to overcome this.

What will?

Community, the one thing that is not even on the list for these people, the one thing that is sold by organizations wanting to manipulate for their benefit, the one thing that seems completely useless at 2 AM when you wake in stress.

Community, real human community is the one thing that can ease the pain and build a foundation that can change this situation, and most others.

HOW?

Look for the coming soon intro to the Kitsap 2050 Resilient Community Plan!

Thoughts about a human future… The Resilient Communities Team