As a family unit, there is generally a matriarch, a patriarch, and children. To compare the household unit to a corporation or to the government we must equate the matriarch and patriarch to the CEO and Board members for a corporation and to the president, congress, and senate for the government. We must also equate the children, in the family, to stockholders for a corporation or to constituents for the government.

The decision to spend, borrow, or save ultimately resides with the ruling body. These individuals propose and vote on economic issues without much direct say from those they represent. While the children, stockholders, or constituents must accept these decisions as being, in there best interest. Beacuse of this, feelings of fear, helplessness, frustration, anger, and resentment often develop when things go awry as a result of these decisions.

Generally, when economic decisions go according to plan the result provides tangible benefits. Unfortunately, the converse is also true. A good example of this is the recent housing crisis, recession, and debt crisis.

Imagine a family where mom and dad decide to buy everything on credit. When that credit runs out, they open another credit account. When their done maxing out that credit account they vote to open yet another credit account. Now mom and dad are hooked and spending 110% of their income on credit payments. Mom and dad decide to ask their employers for a raise. They each receive a raise and now open yet another line of credit. The cycle, however, is not sustainable and soon mom and dad start defaulting on their debt. Mom and dad’s credit rating goes down because of their economic malfeasance. The neighbors say “Mom and dad should have cut spending and lived within their means”. Mom and dad’s response was “But what about the children, we did it for the children”.

Ah, yes the children. What is happening to the children during all of this? How does all this affect those not making the economic decisions? At first life is grand mom and dad are spending money on new Xbox games, new furniture, electronic gadgets that create their own need; it’s like Christmas every day. Then one-day the fighting starts. The finger pointing starts. The children’s world fills with feelings of fear and angst. The austerity begins as the dilutive impact of deficit spending hits home. The entire family unit is not just financially bankrupt but morally and spiritually bankrupt as well.

Sometimes the only way to deal with debt addiction is to bite the bullet. Say enough is enough and take our bitter medicine. Continued dilution of our quality of life, stock, or currency is no longer a viable choice (It never was!). We must look at the grim short-term economic outlook as a glass half-full. It is time for us to grow up. As stewards of the family unit, the corporate unit, and the government we must realize that the day of reckoning is upon us. We must do as St. Paul said in the Bible and “Put childish things away”. We must be accountable and responsible as families, corporations, and government officials for our part in the economic malfeasance which casts a psychical cloud of fear and angst across our great land.

The price of austerity is minimal in comparison to the death of the greatest nation on earth. It is time to put aside our political agendas and differing schools of thought. It is time to look towards the future! The time is now! Every family, every corporation, and every government must do their part to put an end to the out of control deficit spending that is grinding our families, companies, and countries to a halt. It is time to put fear and angst behind us. It is time to tighten our belts and take our bitter medicine so that we can enjoy a balanced world with people that live within their means. A new world without the fear of spiritual, morale, or financial default. It is time we stop the insanity of repeating the destructive behavior patterns of the past in order to maintain the status quo. It is time we lead by example and take our rightful place as the responsible, accountable, spiritual leaders that our founding fathers were!

However, maybe deciding ones individual beliefs does not require group consciousness, and popular support. Therefore, why in our pop culture lifestyles where we are force-fed mainstream reality from an ever-earlier age do we not embrace the intangible? Instead, we choose to become mindless followers blind to anything but the norm. Even worse than that, our lack of vision and novel thoughts subjugates us to this reality. This mindset allows us to become programmable automatons susceptible to cradle to the grave marketing strategies while ensuring a future generation of fast food eating zombies, in the process.

So, why do we lump different philosophy and dissident philosophy together? Why not try seeing that what makes us different is worth embracing. Understanding that accepting our differences forgives the original sins of indifference and intolerance that we commit against our psyches at an early age. These dark blotches seek to consume us, while dulling our senses and tainting our perception, in the process. In essence, our world becomes monochromatic as these original sins continue to diminish our colorful existence into binary hues of black and white. Fuzzy logic may be fine for artificial intelligence applications but is no way to live life. After all are we not more than the sum of our parts. Do we not see the world as more than a binary sequence of zeros and ones? Is not life full of infinite numbers, colors, and possibilities?

So, why live in the void of societal reality thrust upon us at birth. Instead, I issue a challenge. Question what you believe and dare to be different. Embrace that which makes us different and find out how it unifies us. You may be surprised that the common threads that tie all perspectives together run through all schools of thought. Envision our lives interconnected like the individual strands of a spider’s web. To ignore threads that run parallel to ours and capriciously dismiss them without even considering their possible intersection with our thread is not only ignorance at its best but truly shows how blinded we are as a society.

Therefore, before you arbitrarily and summarily dismiss psychics, the paranormal, and Para-Psychologist as charlatans, frauds, and hoodwinkers. I ask you who are more insane the people that lost billions of dollars to Bernie Madoff and still invest billions with hedge funds expecting huge returns or the people that lost millions consulting Sean David Morton for psychic financial advice and still consult psychics?