When this economic slide began, I believe it was covered up, or ignored. We went on as if nothing was happening because it was not us who were effected. A few people were losing their jobs, a few others were losing their homes. Bad financial choices were banner-ed as the cause, nothing more. Happened every day, and like any other news story, after a while stories like these take on a numbing effect.

People graduating college were finding it hard to find work equaling the cost of their education. They obviously picked the wrong fields to earn a degree in, it happened. We have seen this happen before of course, everything would work itself out as it always did. As if we asleep in Dream Land, the true state of our economy did not show itself for what it really was.

It was not a few people being laid off. It was not a few families losing their homes due to bad financial decisions. More than a few college graduates were not able to find any reasonable employment. People were being effected on scale almost none of us have ever seen before. Not in the seventies, not in the eighties, and not in the nineties.

We became so accustomed to problems working themselves out, we were numb to reality. Our idea of the good life was rapidly crumbling around us and we were ambivalent. Life was crumbling for everyone except the upper 1%. The One-Percent were making money faster than any proverbial money tree could grow it.

Those who voiced the idea there was something wrong were shouted down. Fear of losing the American way of life was subtly introduced to silence people who were cognizant enough to see what was really happening. The American way of life was disappearing. The stance was it is the fault of the unemployed and the college graduates who were not willing to do work for a living. That was the crux of what I heard being peddled on the street.

Then came Occupy Wall Street, and the 99%! They had a voice, they were the focal point of for problems in our economy. They were the people who went from have to have not. They started talking and demonstrating, and they were being heard. They were people who were not able to find their slice of the pie.

Rallies and sit-ins gained the worlds attention. Occupy movements were receiving positive air time on the evening news. These groups were being heard. America and the world stopped long enough to notice, and actually understand the real social and economic problems we created for our neighbors and ourselves.

Occupy groups were not outsiders trying to cause trouble. Nor were they tainted college radicals from within. They were Parents and Children of Parents who like all Parents wanted a life for their children as good or better than they have achieved. Occupy Groups were the brunt of what life had been until recently, when suddenly life was no longer being lived in wonderland.

Truthfully, it feels as if these sit-ins and camp-outs are becoming more of a nuisance than focal point for any real cause. The Occupy Groups are mobile, they can a force to be reckoned with. They are in the face of America, and the World. What they do not appear to have is sound Leadership and Vision.

Jumping from cause to cause lacking cohesion between causes is indicative of children who easily lose their focus for the newest bauble across the plaza. Making a stand for this today, and that tomorrow is wasting valuable air time. Acting out silly illegal gestures against private property is not the correct way of keeping focus on the cause and sympathy of the public.

Where is the Occupy Movement going? Are they to become nothing more than mobile Shanty Towns in City Plaza’s and Squares? Hawking the cry of the day for the newest cause? Are the Occupy Movements allowing themselves to be reduced to a mix of people perceived as having nothing better to do? People out for some excitement and a warm meal? People perceived as holding no real interest in making a difference? Are the Occupy Movements and the 99% going to allow themselves to be caught in the net of Public Nuisance?

Any Army no matter how strong, can only fight effectively on so many fronts. Castles are built for defense, not for aggression. The Occupy Movement needs to take steps to keep itself focused, lean, and mobile. Sticking with a few major issues, instead of trying to umbrella every problem that bubbles to the surface daily.

Reasonable People should want the Occupy Movements to succeed and make a difference. We are all the 99% like it or not. We all feel the unhealthy state of our economy. It is more important than ever for the Occupy Movement to stick to a few solvable issues and not disintegrate into promoting the cause of the day.

What happens now if Officer Pike finds himself as Mr. Pike, unemployed because UC Davis can not afford him any more? A few weeks of unemployment and then what? Does he join the Occupy Protesters that he maced a few weeks earlier?

Earlier in the week, American Banks found themselves a little short on the America portion of their name. A four page memo was  found outlined how the Occupy movement should be handled, e.g., in the manner of a political opponent, rather than a movement of frustrated people.  You can read about it here.

Maybe this is a start for American business starting with affiliates of the Banking Industry and the Police Forces across our country to start looking towards their fellow Americans, instead of trying to defeat them and push them back into silence.

Here is the root of the Occupy Wall Street protest in case you are unaware. I find it shameful that a few people with so much want even more. It hurts way down deep to know to these already very wealthy people  money is more important than the land they live in and the people in it.  Money is so important to them  they are willing to ruin America for a few dollars more.

If you are over fifty, poverty may be in your future. If you are under fifty, you may already be enjoying a life of poverty. The average American no longer has the cash  to shop our way out of our problems. I think we are in for some tough times while we work out our problems.  On the bright side some food banks had record donations this month, though most donations were Turkey free.  Nothing wrong with a Turkey less Thanksgiving Dinner I suppose. I have had a few myself in years past.

My thanks and gratitude to all of you who made it possible for hungry families to have food on their table this month, Turkey Dinner or not. Let’s develop our EcoHeart together and do what we can to help each other, and get our country, and the world back on to a better future for those coming after us.

In the sixties when the Vietnam anti-war movement started, people protesting the war were looked upon as anything but Americans expressing their frustrations, angers, and fears. They were labeled as troublemakers, insurgents, foreign nationals, criminal elements whose purpose was to cause rife among the good people of America, and possibly attempt to overthrow the government.

When riots swept through the slums of Detroit, a group of people wanted the same basic rights as other people, they were labeled the same way. They were trouble makers, they were trying to go against the system, they did not understand that was just the way things were.

The picture being painted of the Occupy people is anything but good wholesome American people going after their share of the American Dream. They are portrayed as overly liberal, out of touch with reality, lazy, and trouble makers. Some critics have even gone so far as to say these people want to destroy the American way of life – whatever that may be anymore.  Is this the real picture of what they are, or is it the most convenient way to mold apparent public sentiment.

I would not want to be a recent college graduate today. College is becoming something for the wealthy, no longer meant for the poor student with only drive and determination to learn and no money. Who can afford college when they are taking loans for thousands of dollars a year, only to receive job offers after graduation for a salary that will take twenty years to pay off their loans.

I would not want to not be a college graduate either. Forced into working two or more jobs, not having a day off, or any chance of taking time off work for a vacation. Do you think the people who serve you every day are making enough they can live on from their one job? Ask them if they make a living from their job and they are living a life with a future.

If you are old enough, or if not ask your parents, about the fifties and sixties economy. People were paid enough that it was possible to have a successful future with only one person working in the family. Almost any job paid enough for a family not only to survive, but to thrive.

Over the decades pay has been whittled away to the point where it is normal for both parents in a family to work, and still not have a large enough income to live without outside help. Many families have been forced to depend on their schools feeding their children breakfast. The state is helping them with their rent money, food money, and other needs that one paycheck used to cover.

Maybe it is the Greed of Capitalism, the ignorance of the average wage earner, or the banking industry marketing credit as if money grew on trees. Whatever the reason we have become a people living paycheck to paycheck. If many of us were to lose our jobs, we are most likely to end up on the street, or living in a homeless shelter. That is our ugly reality if we dare look at it.

Maybe some of the Occupy Protest Movements are whining, sniveling, lazy, homeless, and crazy. Perhaps some of them protest for a living. So what? Perhaps some of these people see the reality of their future, and the future of others behind them, and the fiscal reality being lived by those ahead of them.

Real change does not happen when times are good. When times are good everyone is happy. Every policy is a good policy because we are all eating steak for dinner. When times are not so good and we do not even have meat on our dinner plate, we start wondering what happened. When life becomes painful, a few people start thinking about changing the system.

Maybe the Occupy groups do not know what to do. Maybe they are unorganized, maybe they have nothing better to do because they are unemployed and can not find work. Maybe they have a valid point. Maybe they are living what will become our way of life if we continue to ignore what we have done and continue to do in our society?

Maybe it is time we start to think about how we can change how we do things to make life better for everyone. In this decade and for foreseeable decades Americans have to compete in a world market.

Americans need to create a lifestyle where almost every job has a wage attached where people can afford to live on only one job. America has to start balancing the cost of education against the average wage. America needs to get housing costs  inline with today’s wages instead of selling the ideas of future earnings which have turned into vapor.

We have to accept the party for the near future at least is over, and we have to learn how to thrive and survive in a world that is not the world of forty, thirty, or even twenty years ago. Our throw away economy needs revamping. We need to start creating social change where we live out of our heart and not in our greed. We are all one people on one earth whether we live in America, Japan, China, or Greece.

Contact your Mayor and Councilman and let them know what you think about the protests of the Occupy Movement. Call them or send them an email. If you do not support, let your local government know these protestors should be disbanded and arrested. If you support them, let your Mayor know that you don’t mind they are camping in the park as protest.

Making healthy change is not fun. Healthy change is not easy. We must come to terms with what we are doing to each other, our future, and the future of our children. We need to grow our Ecoheart and create change to do what is right for most of us, and not what is great for a few of us.

We drive over-sized, overpowered vehicles because we want to, and it is a problem. We live in house larger than most two or three family homes in developing countries. We waste water, fuel, and food. We spend tens of minutes idling our over-sized vehicles in lines for food that is unhealthy. We do this because we are too busy or lazy to either get down, or make a sandwich or other meal at home.

Our weekly trash collection contains vast amounts of food that has either spoiled, or we do not want to eat. The rest of our trash is partially composed of packaging discarded from things we bought that we think we need. The rest is a mix of real trash and items that are still usable but we are too selfish to give them away, so we send them to the dump.

Our streams now contain hormones and chemicals like birth control pills, caffeine, anti depressants, and other medications our body can not use or we flush down the toilet. This added waste is on top of the millions of pounds of insecticide and fertilizer we dump on our lawns each year that washes away unused in the next rain.

Our lawns where our children play are hazardous waste sites. Herbicides and insecticides often are applied with the thinking that if the correct amount is good, more must be better. Over years, many lawns are approaching higher levels of contamination than identified  EPA Superfund sites.

Our interest in our children’s way of living and their children’s lives take second place to keeping ourselves comfortable. We pretend when gasoline out prices our budget, some other fuel will magically appear. Think about that. Why should an alternative fuel appear? Where is the incentive to produce alternative fuels? We drive around in huge vehicles, vehicles that can carry eight or nine adults for an average family of less than four.

We can continue to keep our head in the sand, pretending we do not see what is happening outside of our air conditioned and heated living spaces. We can play chicken little and generate media like these articles to produce fear, and cry the sky is falling. Or we can develop an EcoHeart and start living in the manner we are meant to live, being stewards of our living space, our country, and our world.

The stripping of timber in Europe led in part to the discovery of the Americas. One-half millennium later we have cleared so much timber for energy and building we are now becoming worried about developing countries wanting to do what we did. Of course these problems are happening somewhere else. We have our own sets of problems in our own back yard. What are you going to start doing? Will it be enough, and will it be enough in time?

Many of us think of Earth and all that lives on Earth as being something out there, extrinsic to us. We feel we live in here. In here is that undefined place that is not out there. This disconnect from the Earth has brought us to where we now are. I do not need to provide examples of what is wrong with our world. We each have our individual ideas of what needs fixing and what does not. We are well aware of what is not working for us.

What we do not share with each other is being part of the Earth instead of living in isolation. Until enough people feel they are an integral part of the earth instead of living separately from Earth, our Earth will continue to change away from conditions we need to survive and thrive.

One way or another Earth will continue on. The existence and quality of life of yet unborn generations of Human Beings depend on what we do. If we continue to live in our isolated world of one, it is probable we will cease to exist as a life form on Earth.

If we choose to adopt a better way to view our Earth. A way of living in which we are part of the Earth and not living in individual bubbles, we can start to undo our damage to our Earth. We will feel the urge to make a difference. We will start the cycle of changing the world back into a place we can all live in and enjoy.

It is not comforting for many of us to think we and the Earth are a package deal. We would like to think if we cease to exist all life and the Earth will cease to exist. Discoveries of life thriving where we could not possibly survive, and what we know of extinct species which did not survive when their world changed prove this is not true.

We are not a package deal with the Earth. We are one species among thousands and thousands of life forms on Earth. We can kill our selves off and become extinct. The Earth will continue without us.

It is time to pull ourselves out of the bubble separating ‘Me’ from Earth and all life. It is time live in a more responsible way. It is time to set our sense of ‘Me’ aside and do what needs to be done for the good of all, not for the good of a few. How do we do that?

Sharing my thoughts on why it is time for each of us to begin to bring about internal and external change is no fun either, it is serious stuff. Like you, I want to believe we will go on living forever. I want to believe all our human caused problems will work themselves out and we will learn how to respect the Earth and Each Other, and all will be okay.

I want to be a young child again; not to see how the Earth is reacting from the way we choose to use her. I do not want to be realistic and mature enough to admit we need to be responsible e if there is to be reasonable future for our future generations. Generations of people so distant we can not yet imagine. I want our future descendants generations out to live and enjoy their life.

I want the Human Race to continue. I know their future or lack of a future belongs to us. This unformed idea that we will load up into spaceships and leave earth for a new destination is a fairy tale. There is nowhere to go we can reach with even our best technology where we can live comfortably. Neither will ‘We’ load up into a space ship and blast off. Of the billions of people on earth, only a very few will have that future if it ever arrives. You and I won’t be one of the passengers. For us, we will  have to contend with what we have done to ourselves when the time comes.

It has been many years since I thought we could assume Earth will save herself from our abuse. The billions of us alive are changing the earth as we know it. Body heat alone given off by billions of pounds of us humans alone at 98.6 f degrees makes a difference to the earths temperature balance.

Our over use of chemicals, heat generated by motors, and most energy forms also contributes. We currently are more than a match for any cataclysmic. Maybe we are changing the earth a little slower than extreme recorded major volcanic eruptions of the past or meteors slamming into the earth, but was are changing our Earth daily, and it is not in a way we would prefer to change her if we were paying attention.

Before you are turned off by the thought of more blah, blah, I suggest our world as we know it is not working the way you think it is. Think about any global issues that do concern you. You are not alone with your list of concerns. The problem is there are not enough people like you who care about what you care about to make a difference.

Your individual concerns only occasionally overlap concerns and fears about our future on Earth which is shared by others. Disparate groups of people they all have different concerns. Others still like things just the way they are. Their only vision is their life, and the rest is someone else’s problem.

The only real commonalty is no matter which side of the fence we sit on, we all have concerns. This is why these type of posts and promoting change are so important. If we do not change our thinking and our way of living in isolation from the Earth, our Earth will continue to erode, becoming worse each year.

However I will eventually go down that avenue. We need to raise our awareness and responsibilities to each other and the soil we live on. Living through your heart keeps life choices simple. Choices made when living through your heart are arrived at with respect and responsibility. Decisions made through the Heart are made for all living things on this earth and the Earth itself.

Many people find new ideas or ways of thinking silly, non existent, something only for crackpots, or evil. I was one of those people. I spent over half my life thinking these types of people were dropped on their heads at birth or had some other problem that made them abnormal. I too thought their ideas were between over reacting to silly and did not apply to my life. What is wrong with these people anyway!

There was nothing wrong with the way everyone lived when I was a young boy. The Earth was ours to do with what we wanted, and the Earth would be okay. Sunday School Teachers and my regular School Teachers told me this was so. Dangerous chemicals being sprayed with abandon would break down quickly into harmless states. Garbage and other waste would decompose back into rich earth. Air was cleaned and refreshed and made wholesome by thunder and lightning storms.

My Teacher told us about something called Acid Rain. A few years after that I was told about DDT. It was okay because it was happening somewhere else, not where I lived. They fogged streets in the area and the kids would play in the fog. It was harmless fun, and no parent thought it was really harmful. After all it was a mosquito killer called DDT. What could be wrong with an insecticide that killed mosquitoes?

Teachers told us we should not drink water from the lakes we swam in and local creeks we played in. That water in these places was now a sewage path full of poop and pee, and other household wastes from houses built next to the lakes, creeks and wetlands. We were told the foam in the water was not “Sea Foam” as we kids believed, but detergent from cleaners and laundry products.

Teachers said water in the creeks and streams where I lived in Minnesota were not the clean or healthy water it looked like to us. None of us kids believed that line either. We thought or decided Teachers were exaggerating, making it worse than it really was. We kids were sure Teacher’s did not want us to have any fun. Teacher’s thought it was dangerous swimming in lakes without lifeguards and this was their way of keeping us safe.

Where I lived in rural Minnesota everything was peachy keen. Those problems happened somewhere else. “Sea Foam” had been present in the water since I could remember (all of five to ten years of memories), and I was told it was Sea Foam by Adults, so that must be what it was. I never saw anyone use the bathroom in the water either from those houses.

A year later our Teachers started telling us not to eat snow any more. Because of Nuclear Weapons testing, and Air Pollution, whatever that was, snow and rain was no longer safe for us kids to eat. We did not believe that story either. When I was a kid eating snow was a rite of being outside in the winter, as was catching rain in our mouth in the summer

I believed my teachers were telling tall tales until I stepped on a large turd in waist deep water while swimming at the lake one sunny July day. Scraping someone’s crap off my foot, I realized the lake really was nothing more than a huge septic tank. My Teachers were right. I no longer wanted to eat fish from that lake or most other lakes and streams with houses around them.

Most adults who thought we could live that way forever were very wrong. Those few Teachers and other people like them had the ability to see beyond their lifetime what the world would be like if we did not change how we lived. They were dreamers with vision. These few people correctly imagined our future if we did not change how we were living.

There is a general division of labor, that is sex, educational, and job based. Terms are used to define the types of labor are used as a rough indicator of work expectations. The terms are “Blue Collar”, and “White Collar”, define what you do for a job, and how you do it.

If you do physical work for a living you are considered a ‘Blue Collar’ worker because you wear work clothes and do physical labor. You know your job as a portion of a larger project. You require some direction and some level of supervision to be successful in your job.

If you have a college education or smart and lucky, you work in an office and you managed your own work or projects. Someone is your boss, but has little day to day interaction with you about your work. You are considered a ‘White Collar’ worker if you meet these criteria. You know what your job is, how to it, and you alone are responsible completing your work.

Growing up from young child to adult, people around you change their expectations of you as you grow. It is almost like a change from blue collar to white collar worker as you mature. As a child you are usually doing something because a parental figure told you too, and doing that something because it needs to be done. As you grow, you do more on your own because you know they need to be done.

Expectations in the work place, social circles, and families are both formal and informal. There are tasks you must complete, and certain behaviors are expected from you. In your social life, your family expects good manners, and your respect for each of them. Your friends expect you think like they do, and to be there for them if they need your help.

Informal expectations are harder to define because they are not talked about nor obvious. In a business setting, a company has policies in place that determine how employees are expected to conduct themselves, and solves differences. These are written down somewhere and everyone working for the company is expected to know them and follow them.

Informal business expectations may on occasion appear to conflict with formal expectations. For example, there may be a formal company expectation of how problems are solved. This may involve a formal process of creating a system of problem definition, all possible solutions, mapped out better solutions, leading to a best solution. Informally, the correct solution may one that is decided over a beer after work, or a weekend basketball game.

Knowing what informal expectations in your work or social group are and following them is important. Informal expectations may mean publicly supporting decisions out of your control while privately disagreeing with them. You company expects you to meet certain standards of dress, behavior and language. These are formal expectations and are written down and talked about.

Completing certain family chores necessary for family unity and happiness without being told once you reach a certain age become informal expectations. Breaking one or more of these expectations and conflict is sure to follow. If you are young adult newly living on your own, new to the workplace, or joining a new group, learning both formal and informal expectations makes your day go better.

The morning starts out bad. The power went out, the alarm clock died, I wake up late because of of the clock and the power, and because I went to bed later than I should have the night before. I start my car, and think if I drive fast to work I will make it faster than if I take my time and follow the speed limits. The time saved is really only a minute or two, and the speed limits are fast enough. That is reasonable thinking although I am not thinking reasonably at the moment.

I am almost to wherever I am going, and suddenly there is a police car behind me with red lights flashing. The Policeman has done his duty, no slacking off for him, and I am looking at a hefty fine. Checking my watch I see I have lost ten minutes when I only was two minutes ahead anyway. Now there is the matter of my insurance company finding out, and depending on what I do for a living, the company I work for.

Getting to work in thirty-two minutes late instead of thirty-six minutes late is not a life changing event. A speeding ticket in in and of itself is not a major life changing situation. Hitting another car, and injuring the other driver, or running over someone crossing the street because I was racing along, would be a life changing event I would live with the rest of my life.

The issue of abortion for example; in the thinking of some people is getting the abortion is not the whole issue. What is the whole issue, is the behavior that led up to getting pregnant in the first place. Why would anyone get pregnant with someone they do not wish to have a baby with? Why was someone having unprotected sex if they did not wish to be pregnant in the first place?

Pregnancy and abortion are trigger words for high profile articles, and are used here to point out a thinking flaw most of us tend to share at one time or another in our lives. We find ourselves taking an action even though we dread one of the possible outcomes. We somehow prevent ourselves, or downplay that outcome while we are making the decision.

If you have not guessed by now the remark, and I bet you thought I forgot about it and went off on a tangent, was a word picture about getting pregnant when not planning to, by someone you do not want a baby with. The actual wording is of little importance, but the idea behind it should be on the top of everyones decision making list.

As I thought about what was said, I saw another ‘Rule of Three’ in the making.

What are the worst possible outcomes within reason?

Is the best outcome worth the risk of the worst outcome(s) actually happening?

How seriously will the outcomes you do not want, if they happen change your life?

When looked at through those three lenses, what seems like a good idea at the moment is not worth the risk of what could happen if something goes wrong. If something goes wrong, looking at yourself in the mirror every day, knowing a poor choice you made, because you can not make it right, is the real painful result. Who wants to wake every day knowing it easily could have been a different choice if only?

As we go through our day most of us are not aware of making any choices. The way we tend to think about our day is everything is pretty much planned out. We know what we are going wear, what we are going to do, when we are going to eat, and what we will do with our free time.

In the course of thinking what we are going to do we will have made a number of decisions. The simple act of waking and deciding what we are going to do with our day involves any number of decisions we are not even aware we are making.

Do we really have to wear the clothes we picked out, spend our day doing what we know or decided we need to do, and end our day in the manner we determined we would when we woke? For the most part we do have to do what we have planned because we are on autopilot. If we do not do what we planned, it is possible we will have made some choices that take us down avenues of life we never thought possible.

When paying attention to how the day unfolds, there are small decisions that need to be made depending on circumstance. These are the options that pop up every day. Subtle small choices that really seem to have no impact on anything we are doing or are likely to do. Big things sometimes come in packages so small we never even notice they exist.

For example, it is not uncommon in these times to have people at intersections holding out their hands, a can, or a hat, asking for money. Some hold signs, some stand dejectedly looking at nothing in particular. It is so common most people hardly notice any more.

Someone you see everyday looks like they are having a really bad day even though you were not told about it. Maybe you are the only person to notice, or maybe you are the last person to notice that something is wrong in their life. Do you pretend you do not see their pain and suffering like everyone else has today?

The phone rings and it is someone asking for donations for some charity. They spend whatever seconds you give them trying to convince you that the situation is desperate and it is practically your civic duty to part with some hard earned dollars for their cause. Maybe it is important, and maybe it is a scam to part the unsuspecting from their money.

These are options that enter life almost each and every day. Some are so small and slippery they enter and leave without being noticed. Others are larger, and demand not only attention, but possibly time or money.

There are the few and far between well disguised big options. Everything in your life has happened for this very moment. The chaos of life has collaborated to create a sequence of events to put you into a position where you are the only person who can take the option to act on something that needs to be done.

It may not be an option of epic proportions such as Jason and the Golden Fleece, Sacajawea, or Marie Currie, but it may be as big, or bigger. When everything falls into place at the right, or wrong time, you may well be the only person in the world with the totally unique qualifications to accept this particular option and follow it to its end.

Of course there is always the option of passing. Saying no, or doing nothing. That is the most painless way away from the situation. In doing that the world will go on as it always has, and the option of doing something meaningful and making a difference will slip into the future somewhere, to appear again in another form. Waiting until the time is right for you to be given an option.

Life options such as these can be though of as entrances to a building you have never entered before, and know nothing about. WIthout realizing, you have the option of going through the door – or not. If you do nothing, nothing will change. If you choose the option to go through the door, you may change the world in ways you never imagined.

It doesn’t take courage to take an option. It doesn’t take strength, stamina, or athletic ability. It does take an awareness to know the seriousness of the option you are presented with and wisdom to make the correct decision. Will you take the option?