What do you want?

[whosinpower]

I've thought allot about the state of world affairs over a significant era of time. Listened to Obama, McCain, Bush, Clinton and a plethora of "leaders" tell us about the world in which we live, how we live, prosper and pursue our own little dream.

We live in a world that in some sense, enslaves us to worktitude - we are born into debt, spend most of our lives to get out of debt, spend most of our working lives to try to save up enough so we can retire - and have been sold that the only way for that to occur is for us to invest our hardearned labour dollars in some sort of stock market scheme. We pay our governments taxes, so they can function, we pay our social institutions so they provide us with services, we pay for everything with our labour. And somehow, along the way - labour lost value.

I've thought about the economic crisis, the healthcare crisis, the foreign policy crisis and all these things resonate through my mind, and I come down to one critical question - What do I want?

I mean, it is easy to critisize. It is easy to condemn one party for doing something harmful or bad, to condemn the banksters, condemn the warprofiteers, condemn terrorists, condemn criminals, condemn corruption and greed, condemn churches, fundamentalists, racists. That is so easy....but where is the vision of something else? Where can I find solutions outside the box? Where am I allowed to dream?

I've decided that what I want. I want to be in a world where debt does not rule our lives. I want to be in a world where a person does not have to work for 25 YEARS to pay for a house. I want to be in a world where your health issue does not bankrupt your family. I want to be in a world where people don't take advantage of the disadvantaged, where nations do not prey on other nations. I want to be in a world where the pursuit of happiness is redefined to one of personal growth, not consumer gadgetry. I want to be in a world where tolerance, generosity and thought of community is highly regarded and enthusiastically encouraged instead of ridiculed and condemned. I want to be in a world where safety and security can be taken for granted. I want to be in a world where the golden rule is universally understood, and universally invoked.

I say these things now because I see the next few years as a generational turning point - a revolution, an end, and a beginning. I say these things because there is so much stuff in this world that I cannot control - but I can still dream. Last time I checked - it was still free to dream.

What do you want? Have you ever asked yourself?

[babylonsister]

1. I want to be in your world! nt

[waiting for hope]

2. It's what I want for my children -

ages 3 and 7. But it's hard to dream when we can put a space rover on Mars and not provide for our own citizens.

[SmileyRose]

3. All I want

is to have some sort of security in knowing that if I work hard and follow the rules until I'm too disabled to work hard anymore that I will have a half decent home, half decent food, some sort of basic medical care and hopefully some little kids around to yell at about being too loud.

Apparently it's asking for too much. :shrug:

[glowing]

4. I agree.. We have a short time on this earth.. and most of it is spent with

people we don't like or are forced to be with, for a few scraps of happiness in the wanning hours of a the evening with the one's we want to spend time with. Seems silly to be on a rat wheel like this, doesn't it.

I'm not saying there isn't value in work, there's just too much value in work.

[whosinpower]

5. There is value in work

But there seems to be MORE value in money. Somehow, we have forgotten the value in work - we are so brainwashed to chase dollars. And because we spend most of our lives, chasing dollars, we stop taking time to figure out what we want. We are so busy chasing dollars, trying to defeat our own personal debt, and debt forced upon us by our own government, that we readily consume the mantra that bigger is better, stuff, consumer products, gadgetry will make us happy. We are so busy chasing those dollars, we have no time to garden, grow our own food, we have no time to do the menial household chores, so look to modern convenience to do it for us, we have no time to sew our own clothes, we have no time to cook our own meals. We have little time to spend with our children, send them off to daycare so we can....go to work.

And yet, when I talk to my mother of her childhood, and her mothers workload as an immigrant farmers wife in the days of the depression....I could not even begin to labour like my grandmother did. I could not labour like my own mother. But the difference is that they did not labour to get money. They laboured to survive - it was their life. They were poor farmers who literally broke the land and created a home for themselves and their children.

I am afraid of how dependant we have become.