do it yourself FREEDOM

Impacts: Mind, Home, Work, Money, Time

“A man in debt is so far a slave.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson

Our strong desire to consume tends to lead each of us into incredible economic trouble. Money has become so easy to borrow we now take borrowing for granted. Virtually everyone from kids to corporations operate on a daily basis on borrowed money. We’re living on the margin; the margin between the borrowed money and the next payment and this existence has literally turned us into debt slaves.

Sadly this is no exaggeration and the worst part is that it is almost impossible to free ourselves from debt without making some difficult choices. Back in the middle ages this was called indentured servitude and it was a bit more forced on the masses by the rich. Today we choose debt slavery happily so we can share in the essentials and spolis our culture requires and provides like beautiful homes and nice cars.

Breaking this pattern is difficult. Money fuels and limits our freedom in so many ways. Earning more money doesn’t solve the problem; learning to control our need for instant gratification is the solution. Money doesn’t set you free, changing how you think about money sets you free.

Making more money seems can have the reverse effect on debt because the more you make the more able you are to borrow more money than you can afford. Without discipline it’s easy to fall into the trap and choose to buy the best things you think you can afford and have earned.

The trouble is that your brain may still be stuck in instant gratification mode and your greed will get you stuck deeper in debt. You eyes may then open and you realize that your debt has also shackled you to our job. If you’re luckily enough to love your work your shackles may seem to disappear, but your freedom and options are still limited. You may also convince yourself that your job is a requirement and unavoidable, but ironically the opposite is true.

Deciding to live more frugally sets you free. Paying down debt sets you free. Living well within your means sets you free. After watching the economy crash and the housing bubble burst it’s not hard for most of us to realize how debt enslaves us. Remembering this valuable lesson when things turn around could be the most valuable lesson of them all.

Take Action

• Avoid accumulating dept.
• Spend far less than you make.
• Always pay more than your payment.
• Avoid buying things that don’t move you toward your goals.
• Buy only what you need.
• Eliminate unnecessary payments.
• Reduce how much you spend for things you need like transportation and housing.
• Be more frugal.
• Downsize.

Impacts: Mind, Community

“It is the province of knowledge to speak, and it is the privilege of wisdom to listen.” – Oliver Wendell Holmes

“The greatest compliment that was ever paid me was when one asked me what I thought, and attended to my answer.” – Henry David Thoreau

When we stop to really listen to the people around us we give ourselves the opportunity to truly engage with and participate. If we choose to remain closed or focused on our own stuff we inadvertently miss the opportunity to learn, grow, and connect with others. We chop-off what might have been the easiest way to open doors and create opportunities.

It’s not surprising that a culture built on concepts of individualism would produce so many people that find it hard to listen. As a teenager one of my favorite quotes was, “Opinions are like assholes, everyone’s got one and most of them stink.” In hindsight, pun intended, this simple sound bite actually tells a much larger story about our culture and begs the question, why do we take opposing positions so quickly. Why not just take other peoples’ opinions with a grain of salt, appreciate the person’s point of view, and glean what we can?

I’m not sure that anyone can become a perfect listener but those that try will find themselves opening new doors and taking great strides toward a happier life.

Take Action

• Begin with family and friends. Stop to listen and carefully consider what they have to say.
• Engage in discussion. Avoid arguements. Instead focus on exploring and discovering why others feel the way they do. Don’t throw the baby out with the bath water.

Impacts: Mind, Community

“We must learn to live together as brothers or perish together as fools.” – Martin Luther King, Jr.

“In the sky, there is no distinction of east and west; people create distinctions out of their own minds and then believe them to be true.” – Buddha

United we stand divided we fall, right? Sounds good on paper and in speeches but unless we live it, freedom doesn’t work, for anyone. Our diversity makes us stronger. In fact it is arguable that America is as strong as it is due to our cultural and religious diversity. Some on the fringes seem to prefer to disagree with that statement but the vast majority of us will point to all the evidence and prove them wrong.

Embracing diversity also means you are choosing to find ways to focus on the things that bind us together. This is not easy and many people find it difficult to take the first steps. An easy place to begin is to try to accept people for who they are, see past the differences and look for commonalities. Our differences are what make us interesting. They give us something else to bring to the table. If we let them divide us we all become weaker.

Exercise

• Make a list of controversial issues you feel strongly about that involve other people.
• To the left of each item mark the items you feel strongly opposed to with an X.
• Now ask yourself why.
• Reflect on the reasons that involve another persons culture, race, religion, or lifestyle.

Impacts: Mind, Community

“As you simplify your life, the laws of the universe will be simpler; solitude will not be solitude, poverty will not be poverty, nor weakness weakness.” -
Henry David Thoreau

“Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves.” – Henry David Thoreau

“Do not trouble yourself much to get new things, whether clothes or friends… Sell your clothes and keep your thoughts. ” – Henry David Thoreau

Extreme examples teach valuable lessons. Avoiding throwing the extreme out with the bath water. Wring what you can out of the towel. Henry David Thoreau lived a life that exemplified this and now serves to inspire many. But there are many examples around us of people who are testing the edges of what most consider the norm.

A good example is the freegan movement. Freegans are people who put their values where their wallets were. They use alternative strategies for living and participate little in the conventional economy. They consume few resources and embrace community, generosity, social concern, freedom, and cooperation. They are opposed to materialism, moral apathy, competition, conformity, and greed.

At first their radical lifestyle would seem so foreign that many people would disregard them all together. When you choose instead to pause and withhold judgment to consider their point of view you may actually take something away that helps you grow and think differently. But this is just one example and no example has to be so extreme to offer value.

Take Action

• Visit freegan.info to learn more about freegans.
• Look for similarities instead of differences.
• Look for lessons instead of of passing judgment.
• When others around you cast judgment on extreme examples try to avoid taking part. If possible start a dialog to see the lesson.

Impacts: Mind, Community

“Freedom is a fragile thing and is never more than one generation away from extinction. It is not ours by inheritance; it must be fought for and defended constantly by each generation, for it comes only once to a people. Those who have known freedom, and then lost it, have never known it again.” – Ronald Reagan

“The ballot is stronger than the bullet.” – Abraham Lincoln

“You are not only responsible for what you say, but also for what you do not say.” – Martin Luther

Participating in democracy, your community, and all relationships with other people and even the environment that surrounds you protects your freedom. Ideally it means you take time to consider all choices before you vote with a ballot, choice or action. Subscribing to a political party or belief system is our natural tendency but allowing these affiliations to divide us and tell us how to choose can cause serious trouble. But it’s not easy to always be engaged and aware. Most of us just don’t have the time to stay informed on all the issues and we often end up relying on TV news sound bites. In politics its also really easy to just fall into the blue state and red state role.

We each have a vested interest in moving our communities in the right direction and although our individual votes and impacts may seem almost valueless, each little bit adds up. Any small step you can make toward increasing your awareness of the issues moves us all toward a better world.

Take Action

• Stay informed on political and community issues.
• Learn about the people irregardless of their affiliations.
• Vote by ballot.
• Vote with your wallet.
• Stay informed on the decisions your elected representatives make on your behalf. A complete list is available on USA.gov.

Impacts: Mind

“Write while the heat is in you. The writer who postpones the recording of his thoughts uses an iron which has cooled to burn a hole with. He cannot inflame the minds of his audience.” – Henry David Thoreau

Writing down you thoughts, plans, ideas and values is an excellent way to process information. Sitting and thinking is definitely beneficial to the mind but writing stuff down tends to work the brain harder, making you really think through thoughts. Things that were once fleeting are now recorded for later reflection or simply act as a way of making the ideas more tangible.

Writing increases your personal freedom by giving you a way of processing and potentially sharing your thoughts. The more focused you stay on moving toward your goals the more successful you’ll be in achieving them. The cost is minimal, just time, ink and paper; or in the age of computers, a little electricity.

Take Action

• Start an offline journal and make it part of your routine by writing something every day at the same time even if it is, “I have nothing to say,” and don’t forget to include the date.
• Start an online journal. Sign up for a free wordpress blog. www.wordpress.com.
• Instead of scraps of paper or sticky notes try using a notebook and keep ideas, notes, lists in one place.

Impacts: Mind, Health, Community, Time

“If a man be gracious and courteous to strangers, it shows he is a citizen of the world, and that his heart is no island cut off from other lands, but a continent that joins to them.” – Francis Bacon

“He who experiences the unity of life sees his own Self in all beings, and all beings in his own Self, and looks on everything with an impartial eye.” – Buddha

Focusing your time and energy on anything that doesn’t move your forward is often a waste of time but more importantly it’s a mental distraction. The only thing you might benefit from is learning something from another person’s mistake. If you can leave it at that you’ve done yourself a favor. If you spend time dwelling on them, judging them, it does no one any good. It also leave you feeling negative. It might even make others feel negative which is definitely counterproductive if you have need to maintain a relationship with them.

But none of us are immune to passing judgment on others. We all do it from time to time. The trick to moving this out of your life is to simply recognize when you’re doing it and choosing to slow down and stop.

Gossip is usually one of the most common ways we get sucked up into judging others. Gossip might bring one group of people together but drives a division between you and the judged. The glue used to form the relationship with the gossipers is not very lasting either and often leads to more trouble. Choosing to judge less brings people closer together, empowers everyone, and increases everyone’s self esteem.

Take Action

• Avoid gossip in conversation and publications.
• Avoid tabloids.
• Watch for situations where other people are being judged and try not to take part in those conversations. If possible try to redirect the conversation.
• Be mindful of your own thoughts and catch yourself when you begin to judge.
• Find a way of staying on the right side of the thin line between having an opinion and casting judgment.
• Remember the person who benefits most from judging less is you, then the judged.

Impacts: Mind, Money

“Heroes are not known by the loftiness of their carriage; the greatest braggarts are generally the merest cowards.” – Jean Jacques Rousseau

Many of us would be lost without our cars. We need them for our modern life. We also tend to spend a lot of money on them. When you consider that in addition to your car payment you pay for insurance, fuel, maintenance, loan interest, parking, and so on, a $300 monthly payment can easily turn into a $500 or $600 monthly expense. Many families have more than car too and the overall cost of transportation can become a very large part of your monthly budget.

I’m not advocating walking everywhere but if we simply chose to drive cars longer, buying fewer new cars, we’d save ourselves money and the average monthly cost would decrease. In hard economic times it’s easy to figure this out, but as times get better keep frugality in mind before rushing out and taking on a new car payment.

Some say the prolonged economic impact to the automobile industry could have permanent negative effects to the automobile industry and economy. This is most certainly a real cost but consider the offsetting benefit for the millions of people who will save money by choosing to keep their cars longer and lower their monthly transportation expense.

For those that begin to drive cars longer the economic benefit is felt immediately. The elimination of ant monthly payment immediately frees up money to be spent on higher priority items.

Take Action

• Maintain your car regularly.
• Keep your car clean inside and out to help you feel good about driving it.
• Buy reliable classics or cult cars that don’t go out of style.
• Pay off your car and enjoy the extra money each month.

Impacts: Mind, Home, Work, Money

“Taxation which lessens the reward of the producer necessarily lessens the incentive to production; taxation which is conditioned upon the act of production, or the use of any of the three factors of production, necessarily discourages production. Thus taxation which diminishes the earnings of the laborer or the returns of the capitalist tends to render the one less industrious and intelligent, the other less disposed to save and invest. ” – Henry George

“To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.” – Thomas Jefferson

“Certainty? In this world nothing is certain but death and taxes.” – Benjamin Franklin

Today we accept that income tax is a fact of life, but this has not always been the case. Over the years there have been those to point out the simple obvious truth, that taxing income  counter productive and puts us virtually in the employment of the federal government.

There have been many alternatives presented to our elected representatives but for some reason taxing income before our employers can pay us has become normal. Unfortunately for us it also seems to be the most effective way to take our money. For example when you talk with friends during tax time do you focus on the total you paid or how much you got back?

Henry George (1839-1897) was an American economist that made great progress during his day on setting up foundations for taxation and helped defend the working class from early corporate impacts. In more recent years others have stepped up to take on the issue of unfair taxation.

One organization, FiarTax, is pushing for a national sales tax to replace income tax. The idea is simple. We still get taxed but we don’t get money taken from our paychecks before we see it Instead we are taxed when we buy things.

The effects are controversial because it is not known how this will help or hurt the economy. Would people stop buying because the tax is higher? Would large and small companies feel even more economic trouble? Would an end come to American consumerism? One thing is for sure, there must be hordes of lobbyists and politicians running all over Washington DC thwarting any impact serious tax reform movements like might make.

In the mean time, until some kind of serious tax reform is found, each of us can make it a point to take advantage of every tax credit and deduction we can. I’m not advocating tax evasion. I’m suggesting that with a little extra effort and possibly some professional tax advice each of can discover ways of lowering our tax exposure though our choices.

With some digging, research, and careful planning you’ll find that some consumer choices actually pay you back at tax time, like buying a hybrid vehicle, metal roofing, or solar systems for your home. Educating yourself and choose wisely and find those tax breaks so you can keep more of your money at tax time.

Take Action

• Learn more about the FairTax plan. www.fairtax.org
• Read  FairTax: The Truth: Answering the Critics by Neal Boortz and John Linder.
• Visit the IRS website and read the sections on tax credits and deductions. www.irs.gov
• Gather your tax documents and seek professional tax advice before tax time for planning advice.
• Keep good financial records of all expenses especially if you have a small business or work out of your home.

Impacts: Mind, Health, Home, Work, Money, Community, Time

“A house is not a home unless it contains food and fire for the mind as well as the body.” – Benjamin Franklin

“Simplicity is the ultimate sophistication.” – Leonardo da Vinci

The space you occupy will bring you more peace if it’s clean and organized. This can be physical space like your home, metal space like your calendar, and virtual space like your computer. In fact you can apply the concept of space to anything around you that you have some control over. If you spend time in places you have no ability to control it’s even more important to focus time and energy on spaces that are not in chaos.

When your space is chaotic it’s much harder to focus and you’ll find it more difficult to relax and feel at peace. Organizing more helps you think clearer and be more proactive in moving your life in the direction you want. Chaos will work against you.

Time is well spent when you organize more because it pays you back dividends in quality time. You’ll find yourself working more efficiently. You’ll find yourself wasting time less. You’ll feel better and be able to think clearer.

Take Action

• De-Clutter -  It’s easier to organize when there is are fewer things to deal with.
• Downsize – We’re like fish, we grow to the size of our tanks. Unlike fish we can shrink our possessions and fit into more efficient spaces.
• Organize – Find a place for everything. Put you stuff away after every use.
• Avoid Storage – Even free storage comes with a mental tax.