Stop the World I Want to Get Off!

Is it just me or has this whole world gone crazy?  I mean it, it doesn't matter where you look, there are not many subjects you can talk about and stay optimistic.  To me, it looks like our world is in serious trouble. The economy is insane - the entire world is in  and there just are not enough good jobs, the environment is being exploited at an alarming rate, overpopulation is becoming an issue, there are wars and threats of new ones, and countries have even collapsed... Yikes! This isn't how I thought life would be when I was growing up.  Sometimes it reminds me of a ride at the amusement park, it's going too fast and it feels like it's out of control.  Maybe it feels like that because so may aspects of life are out of control..  It makes me want to scream: "Stop the World, I Want to get Off!.

When I was growing up, I had a lot of hope about the future, it looked like things were going in the right direction. The economy seemed stable, the job market was booming, the water was clean and Canada's military role was that of a peacekeeper. People were allowed to take to the streets and voice their opinions without the fear of being labelled a terrorist or fined for "illegally" protesting.   Life was much simpler and everything was more relaxed. People had much more time on their hands.  The future looked promising.

People really cared about the environment, Greenpeace was on the news regularly stopping corporations from destroying our resources. Why don't we hear about them anymore?  Where have all the activists gone?  How come there have been oil spill after oil spill, pipeline break after pipeline break, oil-sands environmental disaster and yet no one is tying themselves to tankers or putting up a blockade? No one is protecting our children's interests.

 It is very interesting and even surprising how, in this age of internet technology, cell phones, emails and instant text messaging we are so less organized as a community.  As connected to the internet as we are, we are so disconnected from each other.  We have lost our power to organize and affect change.  Remember when we used to boycott gas stations when they played price wars with gas prices?  Everyone would not buy gas on a Wednesday or stop buying from a particular giant supplier like Shell or Esso.  It worked though, they brought the prices down again.  It worked, while it lasted...What happened?  How come we are less able to act as a group with all this communication technology at our fingertips? Isn't that interesting? Of course back then the media was with us.  Radio stations would announce the next location to boycott.  Now corporations and the government own the media and control everything we are told.  It's not always the facts and it's not always the truth.  Information is manipulated and censored to control and influence public opinion.  I have first hand experience at how news reporters pick and choose which "angle" to give a story, which "sources" they want to be heard - they chose who will be interviewed.  It's not about reporting the facts or the "whole story", it's about what they want the public to believe, react to, buy into...

Back then, it seemed like the government cared more about our well being than it does nowadays. It paid for huge advertisement campaigns on TV, magazines and billboards about eating healthy, getting regular check-ups and exercising  It gave money to communities and schools to promote health.  "Participaction Parks" were in almost every city and town giving people a free place to get healthy with physical exercise and helping people stay connecting with nature.  We need to get away from it all, it's our way of keeping our batteries charged.  All the parks are now gone or privatized and the government no longer makes public service announcement about health and diet.  Our society has become very unhealthy physically, emotionally and spiritually.

It's the first time ever that the next generation has a shorter life span expectancy than the one before them.  Our kids are not healthy, their life expectancy is shorter than our generation. This is unheard of.  Lack of exercise and healthy eating habits is causing them to have weak hearts and bodies.  The food they eat has lost it's nutritional value.  Our fruits and vegetables have been so genetically modified that they no longer have the same nutritional value as they once did and still should.  They have a different lifestyle than we did, it is more sedentary.  Government cuts to school physical activities and social fitness programs and of course, the invention of computers are some of the contributing factors.. It's not like television wasn't enough of a great babysitter.  Televisions and computers are also partly to blame for the decline of moral values and the disintegration of the family unit.  Although we are more technologically connected than ever, people are more isolated and lonely than before.  As internet communities and chat rooms boom, real communities and real communication are becoming a thing of the past.

Electric cars where up and coming 20 years ago, what happened to them?  How come they never went mainstream? Why are we supporting still supporting the dirty polluting oil industry?  Why are we continually allowing corporations to put their profits ahead of clean energy, environmental protection and ultimately our well being and that of future generations. 

Government and corporations have shaped our society.  They lead us this way and that way.  The economy is such a mess, the whole world is on the verge of bankruptcy. Small business used to be the back bone of this country and the US.  Why do we allow governments to keep giving our tax dollars to big corporations like General Motors?  The government gives them million of dollars to bail them out, meanwhile they have been paying their CEO's millions of dollars in salaries.  This is completely ridiculous and I would even consider this criminal activity if you ask me.  Our government is corrupt, like most others in this world.  The whole economic system is corrupt.  The world economy is based on imaginary money - the rich get richer at the expense of the rest of us.  There really are only two classes of people - those who are rich and those who want to be.

It used to be that we called this a "dog eat dog" world, but now I think it's turned into more"man eat man" world.  What's happened to people?  What happened to kindness, charity, generosity and looking out for your fellow man?  I lived in Victoria BC,  for 4 years and it is considered Canada's homeless capital, even though it is also renown for it's upper class retirement community..  Everywhere you look, elderly and sick people are roaming the city, alone and lost.  They carry their belongings in shopping carts or backpacks; they sleep in cardboard boxes, in parks, stairwells and sidewalks.  People drive and walk by without giving them a second thought.  The BC government spent millions on the homelessness issue but are not longer using them for this purpose.  The BC government has closed many psychiatric residences sending mentally ill people on the street off to fend for themselves.  There must be at least a dozen government funded organizations like Our Place, Victoria Coalition for Homelessness and  Cool Aid Society. and instead of solving the problem, the money is just passed among these useless agencies. It's all about keeping money in the government budget.

I think it's because life has gotten too hard.  Good jobs are hard to find, job security is a thing of the past, the competition for survival is on.   Whereas before, one person could support the family, now it takes both parents to work outside the home to be able to afford to live in this over inflated economy.  Inflation has gone up and wages have not kept up, especially for the lower working classes.  My daughter has just started university and the competition she faces is discouraging to her.  Her future is so uncertain.  Our children have little to give them hope.

I used to think that conspiracy theorists were all nutcases.  

Living Life with Less

My husband and I have spent a good portion of our lives trying to enjoy nature and the wilderness as much as possible. We have struggled to find a balance between earning a living and living a simple and happy life.

Earlier in our lives, we both held well paying jobs and earned good money. We drove a fancy sports car, and as quickly as we earned it, we spent our hard earned money and bought alot of things. We ate alot of fast food and we led a very fast life. We fell into the rat race trap and for awhile we bought into the hype of advertising and believed that buying things would make us happy. But the opposite happened, the more we spent the more stressed out we became. Looking around everyone was shopping and accumulating, every one's house was getting bigger and fancier. Every one's car was getting shinier and newer.

Being conservative and frugal became a sign of weakness, a sign a failure. Somewhere along the way society became money driven and greedy. Some life altering events allowed me to see that being materialistic and accumulating objects was pointless. In fact, I have learned that the less you have, the richer YOU become. We lose ourselves in things and in the struggle to earn money to buy things and in the bombardment of marketing that lie to us and tell us we need things - that we are less than without these things - that our lives will be better if not for these things. The less I have the easier life becomes and the more freedom I have. The more freedom I have, especially financial freedom (in the opposite sense of the common use of the expression!), the happier I become.

We need to turn back and go back to a simpler time. A time when people earned a little money to buy the extra things they could not supply for themselves. We need to go back to a time when life was less complicated and more enjoyable. Life has gotten too difficult, people are getting more and more stressed out. People don't have time for each other anymore; and families are becoming more and more scattered as people venture farther from their home town in search of employment.

Education is getting so expensive it will be available only to the elite and the wealthy. Competition for jobs will only get worse as the world's population increases. Food prices will continue to rise as supply and demand continually grows.

People have been herded in the cities, shutting down our small towns and killing the community spirit. The villages can no longer raise the children and the children are completely losing themselves in our cities. Cities are cold bustling noisy places where people shuffle about hurriedly and cut each other off in traffic. The vehicles keep getting bigger (despite our environmental problems) and their price tags keep climbing - the competition is never ending.

The rat race continues. My husband and I are tired of running with this crowd. We are opting for the simpler life. We want to work less and play more. We are downsizing and getting rid of most of our possessions. We have never been happier.  We believe there has to be better way, an easier way to live a happy life.

This post is a work in progress....your thoughts...and feedback are welcomed.