DRIVING FORCES or MEANS TEST; a BOOMER VIEW
Friday, Apr. 3, 2020
Is it by choice, or by necessity, that we are driven?
Food, clothing, and shelter choices seem simple enough.
We are consumers, and usually choose within or slightly below our means.
Or not.
Those who elect to live beyond their means have choices.
Either ‘figuring out a solution,’ for generating more means, or rethinking their choices – driven by managing, juggling, or balancing of necessity and means. As means declines, appetites adjust – everyone makes do with less.
Short of theft, we are left with variables of: inheritance, work/creating something of value, or begging.
Governments, anticipating needs and in their rush to help, offering relief to outstretched hands before mobs gather. Easy enough for them to print more money and distribute it to us – some to be repaid, some to never be repaid, none of it earned. Since all countries are going to be doing much the same thing, it ‘sells’ as proactive stimulus AND non-inflationary …
Why are they doing this?
Simple and quick.
Is it the only/best solution which will leave us all feeling strong? Or will it leave us feeling, weak, manipulated, and untrusting?
And I’m still of the view our baby-boomer generation has strength, energy, experience, and creativity. We’ve not lost it, but many have parked it as we’ve transitioned from the world of work to semi-work, and to no work. Well, we’re not done. Our children, and our grandchildren, need us now – collectively, they need us to be productive, to be generous, to be kind, and to be reliable. Yes, many of us will fall by the wayside soon – to aging, to despair, or to COVID-19. We are more vulnerable and, if infected, less likely to survive.
Our choice is mostly not one of despair over food, clothing, and shelter. Or medical care; the economy of the planet is being twisted into a paralyzed pretzel to care for us, and to prevent rampant devastation.
The world-shift to a gig-economy, new approaches to carbon, and more humane lifestyles notwithstanding, in the end, we either have it, or we don’t. If we don’t, we have choices to make – use what we have, work for what we need, steal what we need, or beg.
I’m not trying to plant fear-seeds here, but from recognizing today is probably more like the time of the great-depression than we’ve known in our lifetimes.
While our governments print money, while our children and grandchildren work off the debt for the next few decades, what can we boomers do?
We can sit, wait, worry, wither, and die – or we can spend, invest, work, contribute, and innovate like there is no tomorrow … because we believe there will be a tomorrow, and 99% of us will survive.
Reader feedback:
The longer we live, the more this becomes true and truly oppressive. Thankfully, there is also life, and joy, and renewal. We are fated to always swing on that pendulum. Might as well embrace it. Swing away, RH, Calgary, AB
Again, so sorry for your loss Mark. Some people do return to us more often and for a longer period of time, depending on our what relationship with them was, LH, Lethbridge, AB
Thank you my friend. My thoughts are with you in this time of mourning, KK, Calgary, AB
Mark, Thank you for your thoughts today…. Everyone is safe and healthy on our end… and doing incredibly well. Mom is in a great place, and so are dad's children and grandchildren…. if the most important thing in his life was to be sure that he set his wife and children up for success, he certainly succeeded. Mom has started her next chapter and is moving forward… she has stepped up in a way that we could only have hoped and is truly the matriarch in the family… she is confident and happy… and not letting a day pass by without her being engaged with her children and grandchildren. I hope that you and your family are safe and healthy during this crazy time in the world, SB, Kelowna, BC
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