Enough should be enough!

or

How to find Financial Security by having Enough!

Did you know that the advertising industry spends over two-hundred billion dollars each year trying to convince you that you are not happy?  Everywhere you look there are advertisements: television, newspapers, magazines, billboards, bus benches, and now, even on the floor in some grocery stores!  The purpose of all this is to entice you to spend your hard-earned money on whatever it is they are selling.

This unceasing barrage of advertising taints our culture and changes our personal priorities!

I hope to use this campaign as a "bully pulpit" to help you evaluate what is important in your life.  I want to ask every one of you who are re-evaluating your priorities in this post 9/11 world to take the time to consider the concept of "enough".  

Almost all of us say that our families are the most important thing in our lives, but we have been sucked onto the consumer treadmill by a pop culture that worships consumption.  The average number of hours worked per week by an American last year was greater than any other industrialized nation!  

We say we believe in the philosophy of Home Town, USA, but, unconsciously, we have absorbed the philosophy of Main Street.  The Main Street that wants us to believe we will find fulfillment once we "Master the possibilities!"

Enough should be enough!

Most of us spend way too much money on things that are not really that important in the grand scheme of things!

I have not seen the Census Bureau statistics for the Sixth Congressional District, but we must be one of the wealthiest Districts in the country.  I know that Douglas County is considered to be the wealthiest county in America, when household income is used as the proper way to measure wealth.  

If we here in the Sixth Congressional District do not have the ability to have enough, who does?

I think the answer to that question is that no one who buys into the Consumer Culture of the advertisers will ever have enough.  

Regardless of how much you already own, the advertisers will convince you (if you let them) that you need to buy whatever newer or bigger or faster thing it is that they are now selling so they can get your money to allow them to buy newer or bigger or faster things for themselves!  

Our popular culture runs on dissatisfaction.

I would like to suggest that you take this simple test of your position on the concept of enough.  Go to your closet and take the clothes you wore last week and put them on your bed.  Now look at the clothes remaining in your closet and try to remember the last time you wore them.  (Don't forget your shoes!)  If you are like most people you will see a large number of "impulse purchases" or "cheer me up" purchases.  How much money did you spend on the clothes you hardly ever wear?  How much time and energy do you spend sorting through the pile to decide what to wear each day?  How much money did you have to spend to buy the house with the over-sized closets?  For that matter, how much did you spend to buy that over-sized house? (This test is probably more telling for the women reading this, but you men can take the same test in your multi-car garage that only has room among the stuff to park one of your cars!)

My point is that there is, or that there should be, a difference between a need and a want.  If you critically evaluate the difference between your needs and your wants, you will probably find that you can save a considerable sum of money.  Concentrate on how much is enough, as opposed to what the advertisers want you to want, and you may well find that that three-year-old automobile of yours is good for another year.  How much money can you save by buying one less car over the next twenty years? 

Think about it.

Take charge of your own life!

Train yourself to ignore all of those advertisements and commercials and develop your own concept of enough!  

Secure your financial future!  

Be your own boss!  

Run your own life!

Once you have taught yourself to eliminate frivolous impulse purchases from your life you will probably find that you can save tens of thousands of dollars over the rest of your life and be happier at the same time.  The reason that you can be happier is  because you have less stress from the over-work necessary to buy more things and you will probably have the time to concentrate on the truly important things like your family and friends.

Of course, if you were born to wealth then you do not have to work for a living and you are free to spend your time on whatever your priorities are!

The rest of us, however,  really should equate our money with our life. That is because we have to spend the limited hours of our life earning money to live.  Truly, "Time is money", as the saying goes, but it would be better for most of us if we thought of our money as "the finite hours and minutes of my life that are gone forever."

Make time/money/life mean something.  

Spend it wisely, or save on "expenses" and build assets for the future.  

If you are not one of the people out there practicing "Economic Brinkmanship",  (spending up to the edge of your financial means) then you have the chance to become more financially secure.  That financial security can accomplish a number of goals, but one of the things that it can do is allow you to follow President Bush's urgings to "love your neighbor" and volunteer in your community to help make your world a better place!

There are a couple of books that I have found to be very useful in understanding these concepts I am trying to convey to you.  You might consider checking them out of your local library, buying them from your local bookstore, or ordering them from an on-line source.  They are "Affluenza" by John de Graaf, David Wann, and Thomas Naylor, and "Your Money or Your Life" by Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin.

Here are a couple of interesting web sites that deal with the concept of enough, sometimes called the "simplicity lifestyle".  I hope you can take the time from your busy life to check out the following links:

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Patriotism

We all have a civic duty as citizens of this country to fulfill our responsibilities to our family, our community, and our country.  Being an American is not just about rights, it is about responsibilities, too.  For far too many years now, we have focused on life-style rather than on actually living a life.  

Self-indulgence will never lead to self-fulfillment. 

We are all part of a larger whole and we have obligations to the larger community.  If we are parents, our children deserve our love, guidance, and protection.  If we are married, our spouse deserves a certain amount of love and support.  If we are citizens, our city, state, and country deserve a varied amount of involvement.  

I agree with the Democratic Leadership Council, which says in its New Democratic Credo, that, "We believe in community; that we can achieve our individual destinies only if we share a commitment to our national destiny."  I believe that America must return to the "ethic of mutual responsibility in which government has an obligation to create opportunity for citizens, but citizens have an obligation to give something back to the commonwealth."  

Civic duty is a concept that is not as strong as it used to be.  Today the emphasis in our culture is to indulge our whims and to acquire material goods.  There is little talk of responsibilities.  Together, during a time of international turmoil, we can use the opportunity provided by this political campaign season  to begin the process of changing our popular culture.  To paraphrase President Bush, "We are either part of the problem, or we are part of the solution."

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