Rethinking Money And Energy Exchange

As I reflect on money this morning, I realize how seriously warped my ideas about money are. It has nothing to do with greed or taking advantage of other people. Rather, my thoughts flow to memes I have incorporated into my being that limit the money and other blessings I allow to flow into my life. I realize I am my own worst energy block when it comes to receiving! 

The first meme that has created havoc in my life is the idea you have to put effort out in order to gain money. The meme in and of itself is not a bad concept. Life is about putting energy out and gaining it back in a never ending cycle. Energy exchange. That is the way it works. What is messed up is energy exchange as it relates to physical money. We have been taught that only certain actions are worthy of receiving money. The fact of the matter is, each and every one of us expends a good amount of energy doing things for other people, animals, the environment, etc. that we do not get paid for--often actions that are extremely valuable to life on planet Earth.

A good many problems in our world are the direct result of believing only certain occupations are worthy of receiving money for. If the energy you put out is not on the list of jobs that can earn income, you are considered lazy and good for nothing. Ironically, much of this can be the exact same energy output as what we actually do every day. For example, you get actual money for taking care of elderly people in the nursing home. However, take care of your elderly parent in your home fulltime and get nothing back in return (except the knowledge you are providing for someone you love). Is this right? Is this fair? Granted, it all needs to be done. My point here is, we expend positive energy and should receive positive energy back. We allow society to dictate what we can receive back. Blessings blocked!

Our beliefs about income earning jobs are also warped because we value certain jobs much more highly than other jobs. That's why workers at places like Walmart and McDonald's get paid minimum wage and high level managers at corporations get paid millions of dollars. The basic idea here is that "brain power" should be much more highly paid than manual labor. After all, anyone can do physical labor. Not everyone is intelligent. Right?

I'm going to call BS on this idea right now! We are all gifted in our own ways. If we are putting our energy out in the world in positive ways, shouldn't we expect to see it come back to us as a liveable wage? We need to become a people so conscious of our actions that we value the contributions each of us makes to society, even if those actions are currently deemed selfish--like taking care of an older parent or our children! We need to understand that taking care of our own families often has even greater value than taking care of people outside our families because we are also loving, valuing and honoring the ones we take care of! We need to understand that flipping burgers at a restaurant has value! We need to understand that collecting others' trash has value! Even a simple smile has the power to make another's day better! We need to be a people who understand what REAL value is!!!     

The next meme that has created problems for me is "Do no harm". While this, too, is largely a good meme, I am one of those people who takes it to the extreme. I want to be sure that the energy that comes back to me is good, untainted energy. I am very conscious of my actions towards others, animals and the planet. What creates problems for me here is my prejudgment of situations and potential outcomes. 

For example, in my part-time retail job, we are encouraged to have our customers apply for credit. For each person we get to apply, we get a couple extra dollars on our paychecks. I have very definite ideas about credit and indebtedness being the very institution that creates modern-day slaves. Consequently, I do not get all that many credit applications. I do, however, find it interesting how several of my young, high school aged coworkers get lots of credit applications. I attribute their success to the fact they do not prejudge the impact applying for credit is going to have on the other person's life.

What I usually fail to recognize when I prejudge a situation is that there are often consequences I do not anticipate. I do not know what others came here to learn! Maybe one of the lessons they signed up for was to face hardships when they got themselves into too much debt! The point is, when I fail to offer someone else a certain experience, I may not actually be helping them. I am also denying myself the blessings the situation may be able to bring me. 

Our world is seriously twisted in so many ways. We are here to help bring it back into balance. It is only by questioning the status quo that we can make the changes that benefit the whole. Money and energy exchange play such a huge role in our lives on planet Earth today. Isn't it time we rethought how it functions so that it is much more fair and balanced as well? By doing so, we have the potential to create a life of abundance and prosperity for all!

~CSE

Energy Exchange And The State Of BEing

I smiled as a kid. A lot. I was pretty happy, but I also knew the power of a smile. Smiles opened doors. A confident smile allowed me to walk in to any group or social situation and be accepted. There were also many occasions where I found I could pass along my smile to someone who was sad or in pain. My smile could make people feel better. Genuine smiles contain immense positive energy, and it was this energy I freely shared and accepted back from the people I shared them with.

My smiles were a form of energy exchange. There are many such exchanges we make with other people every day. We also exchange energy with animals, plants and even Mother Earth. Most of these energy exchanges we pay no attention to because we are not consciously aware of their value. However, there are many cases where it would be difficult to live without such exchanges.

Let me give an example. A cotton farmer plants his fields, nurtures the land and his crop and harvests this resource. The farmer expends his energy with this work and is rewarded back with a commodity he can then sell to a mill to make into threads and eventually into cloth and clothing. 

Our money system is a form of energy exchange. Typically we put in some sort of energy at a job (usually a thought process and/or physical labor) and we receive back cash we then use to pay our bills. The problem with this system is that it is highly limited. Only certain actions are considered worthy of money, and only under certain conditions. Much of the energy we put out into the world is never acknowledged--like my smiles--and never given a monetary value. 

It's silly to put a price on a smile, right?

The right smile can change the world! In my lifetime, I have managed to get smiles back from people who you would never believe had a smile in them! A smile can give hope, courage, joy, love, peace, acceptance. It can give another person that little something that helps them cope and move forward. In very real ways, smiles can give others much needed energy!

Sit back and think about all the things you do during the course of the day. Maybe you exchange a quick kiss with your wife or husband or child as you head to your job. Maybe you stop at the local coffee shop for a quick coffee and chat with the barista. Maybe you interact with coworkers in an effort to solve a problem that will propel the business further.  Maybe you make dinner for your family so you can spend a little time talking about their days. Did you share a smile or a laugh with someone? Did you do something to touch someone's heart? Did someone do something to touch your heart? How did you feel? How did other's feel?

Every day, we go about our lives without a thought to all the ways we give to others and receive from others in return. This energy we put out into the world is who we are--the very essence of BEing!!! Our BEing creates value in the world, and yet we don't get paid for most of it. We don't even get acknowledged for it!!!

Tell me. What is the worth of a smile? When we understand the answer to that question, the world will change in very profound and powerful ways! 

~CSE

    

Rethinking Money

I had a very interesting and challenging discussion online last night about money after posting a Tedx talk about giving everyone a basic stipend to live on. It brought me back to my beliefs on money and why I believe what I do. I had to ask myself the deeper questions that I normally don't think about all that often. My bottom line is, I cannot accept the status quo because there is too much pain and suffering that goes along with how the world works at present. Much of this pain and suffering involves money in some way. It doesn't have to be that way. If we changed our perceptions about how money works and is supposed to work, I believe we could eradicate much of the pain and suffering that has plagued us. It is time to rethink money!

At present, money is not used as a way to measure assets. Money is an asset. In all first and second world countries, money is pretty much required to survive. We use it to pay for our shelter. We use it to buy food. It is required to purchase clothing and laundry soap and entertainments. Here in the United States, they prosecute people who try to get away with living without money. How so, you ask? Look at people who choose to live off the grid, especially those who live in relatively populated areas. They may live on well water instead of  tapping into the public water supply. Even worse, they choose to live with no electricity or have their own power supply through alternative means. (*Gasp!*) The "health" department will come in and condemn the property or some such thing for not being properly hooked up to the system!!! It won't even be an issue of cleanliness. Being connected physically to the system pretty much requires you to make money so you can pay those you have to be connected to. (The whole idea behind this is just a short hop from making it illegal to feed the homeless in your community.)

In many first world countries, acquiring money requires DOing. You work this job where you get paid X amount of money. You work this other sort of job and you receive XX amount. I have two problems with this concept. First of all, energy exchange is required in all jobs. You put in your energy and you get back money (which is supposed to be a representation of this energy) Why should certain jobs automatically receive more energy back than other jobs? Does a person really expend that much more energy DOing the higher paying jobs?

My second problem with money as DOing is that some people in this world are born without the ability to DO anything. There are people who live their entire lives in a vegetative state and must be cared for their entire lives. Then there are people who are limited in what they can do because of disability or disease (or ironically even because of poverty). These people have at least some ability to DO, but with our current value system it is often considered not very worthwhile.

This second issue comes with its own built in problems. When you believe DOing is important, you can justify the expense it takes to pay to support someone in a vegetative state. They obviously cannot do anything for themselves. It makes you feel good that you are contributing to their welfare since they can't DO for themselves. It's those others that don't DO what they could DO for themselves that get your anger up!!! Why should I be required to pay for someone by my DOing (by my energy) that those people should be DOing (exerting their own energy) for themselves? This is exactly where all the arguments for and against social welfare programs come in. Where do we draw the line at what is necessary and what is just waste?

For me, this sort of thinking does not really align with our modern, technologically advanced world. We have the resources to produce enough food for everyone on the planet (regardless of what you have been told to the contrary). We have the ability to eradicate poverty from the face of the earth--with minimal human output! Sure there are still people needed to produce food, clothing, buildings, entertainments, etc. If we have to be so focused on DOing, why can't three or four people DO what would now be considered one job and still get paid a living wage?

My preference (if we have to use money at all), would be to pay people for BEing. The difference here is that all human life is considered valuable, regardless of what they can actually DO! What is the value of BEing in a vegetative state? Maybe it's to teach someone else compassion, or patience, or unconditional love. In many ways, we all contribute to the planet just by holding our energy. (That's pretty much the definition of BEing.)

The irony of BEing is, most of us who are capable of DOing as well would indeed be DOing!!! Most of us would quickly tire of sitting around on the couch watching tv and eating bonbons all day!!! We'd want to be outside planting flowers or vegetables. We'd want to interact with other people at the store or in a factory. We'd want to sing and play and follow our talents and our dreams! If we didn't have to "earn a living"--if we didn't have to DO--many of us would still contribute our own energy to the world at large.

There is so much pain on the planet. As our voices rise in agony, understand that pain can be our friend. Pain has the ability to bring about change and growth. Understand that the pain will continue until we change ourselves to reflect new ways of BEing. Rethinking money--what it is and how we can use it more productively--is a great place to begin!!!

~CSE

Energy Exchange

Energy flow involves a constant cycle of give and take. We put things out in the universe, and the universe responds in kind by dropping things back into our laps. Many people refer to this as energy exchange, and we are involved in such exchanges every day whether we know it or not.

There was a lovely story just recently in the BBC news magazine called, "The girl who gets gifts from birds." It began innocently enough as Gabi began to notice the crows in her yard would swoop in and devour any food that she happened to drop. The birds began to watch for her specifically and gathered near her when she was around. She enjoyed the attention and realized she could gather more of a following by deliberately dropping pieces of her school lunch on the way to school. Her brother and mom helped her as they made it a point to provide food for the crows every morning in their yard. Suffice it to say, as Gabi gathered her rockstar following of crows, she began to take notice of little items that would appear: a small piece of broken jewelry, polished stones, and mundane things like bolts and buttons. The crows were giving back tokens of their appreciation for the offerings they received.

The important thing about energy exchange is that there really is no getting something for nothing. As a society, we usually handle energy exchange through the concept of dollars and cents, but even on those occasions when no money is involved, some form of energy is ultimately the currency.

It is important to make sure you are putting out as much energy as you receive. Problems occur when energy becomes unbalanced.

~CSE