Like the kid said in the Goonies under the wishing well, this is our time, down here. Down here in the recession is our time to shine. The CEO of Cisco, John Chambers, thinks this moment of our lives will shape the next 25 years. The decisions we make now are the ones that people will be telling stories about for years to come. It’s make or break time.
Humans have a way of evolving faster when they have to. What I mean by evolving is probably more like innovating, but its innovation for survival’s sake, which is more closely related to evolution. Necessity is the mother of invention. If you need to eat, you just might start thinking harder about all the different ways in which you could make money to buy food.
This is a period of paradigm shifting. People are rethinking everything they do. They are starting to ask themselves, “Why am I doing this?”. On a national scale we are asking ourselves, “Tell me again, why are we at war?” And when we go to do something we normally do, we notice our habits are changing. I’m reminded of the old poem:
Use it up
Wear it out
Make it do
Or do without
I think there is a lot of people making their cars run longer, upgrading their computer parts instead of buying new, cutting back on cable programming and spending more time at home. But if you take each one of these scenarios, there is a flip-side for the economy. Car maintenance shops have increased business. Computer repair shops are now busier than ever. Low-budget entertainment like Red Box rentals and Netflix are increasing.
How many of you are starting to eat all of the food in your pantry? How many of you are selling your unused goods on Ebay or Craigslist? How many of you have started a second job or business? How many of you have gone through your home and unplugged unnecessary appliances to save money on electricity? How many think that these are things you should have been doing all along but never did? How are you going to live going forward? What will you do when things turn around? Will you go back to your old ways? What can you do to improve the life of yourself, your family, or a neighbors life today?
This is our time. How we spend it is up to us. Lets make it memorable. Lets improve things for all mankind. Lets bring developing countries up with us. Lets unite as a world and stop tearing each other down. Lets use the economy as an excuse to do the things we should have been doing all along.