My Fellow Compassionate Capitalists:
When I was 16 we moved from the tiny town of Show Low which had a population of about 4000 people to the bustling “city” of Globe with a population of about 10,000 people. Globe was a mining town and I was excited because of its old buildings and history. I was even more excited about going to the hundred year old high school!!!
I wanted to play my cards right and be popular. I knew that nobody knew anything about me and so I had a chance to start over. I made friends with a Native American off the reservation named Anthony and I would drive there and pick him up to play basketball and to cruise on the main strip on Friday nights. Nobody ever messed with Anthony and I felt that he had my back.
On the first day of school I walked into the hallway to find my locker only to be greeted by six cops, two paramedics, and firemen. Laying in front of my locker was a kid who had called a girl a bi@/h. A guy walking by thought he was talking to his girlfriend and gave him a beat down …..complete with compound fractures busting through the skin which required a three month hospital stay. I was terrified and it was all I could do to keep it together.
I went to my “go to” which is sarcasm and humor. I was in third period that day making what I thought was a joke……and when I delivered the punch line and everyone laughed……the biggest kid in the class (Brett) turned around and very seriously told me he was going to kill me. I was terrified and felt fortunate that the teacher held him back in class when the bell rang.
I spent the next few days dodging Brett. I was happy when the weekend came and the first school dance was going on. Some time that evening I went to use the restroom and right while I was in the middle of it…. I hear the bathroom door lock and I got surrounded by Brett and six other people. I was standing there and couldn’t do anything. Brett proceeded to explicitly tell me about the ass kicking I was about to receive.
The next thing I knew Anthony kicked through the door and Brett coward and everybody took off like a bat out of hell. I was grateful for my friend that night. I knew Anthony was a real bad ass because he was the same size as me and yet someone as big as Brett feared him.
Fast forward a couple of months later and I was trying out for the basketball team. There was a skinny Native American named Mike that I did not like. He was much smaller than me and I knew I could take him down. Several times during tryouts the couch broke up what would’ve been a fight between me and Mike. I was going to wait for him after practice until Anthony came up and asked “what the hell are you doing? Mike is crazy! I won’t even fight that guy”!! I spent the next two years trying to stay the hell out of my Mikes way.
F.E.A.R……..False Evidence Appearing Real. Isn’t it interesting how many times in life we receive false evidence that appears real and make horrible decisions or choose to not live to our fullest because of this fear. We don’t run from things that we should and we attack things that we shouldn’t. Fear is a very powerful emotion and one of the governments favorite ways to control people.
I’m not a conspiracy theorist who believes that all government is evil. I do think though that many politicians don’t understand the magnitude of the scope of some of the problems that are extremely complicated ……and when they cannot explain things to them selves they use fear instead of an explanation when it comes to the public. We as the public in general really don’t want to bother with politics and so like Chicken Little…..we eventually believe the sky is falling.
The collective economy is only as strong as our resolve….or as fragile as our deepest fear. The only thing we have to do to recover from Covid and the housing market bubble that will soon pop…. is to simply deal with it!
Fear is ignorance’s greatest beneficiary.
Education is fear’s ultimate nemesis!
We need to get back to the basics when it comes to financial education. We need to understand how the economic cycles work and not be surprised when what goes around… comes around! We need to study our history and take heart in the fact that those before us had life much worse and yet were still able to persevere and come out on top and advance society despite all of the world ending plagues and depressions.
We need to understand that there are Compassionate Capitalist out there who have money and who understand the game of investing. We need to understand that the destruction of the economy benefits no one. No one cares if you’re the king if you have no subjects.
In the end the desire to be part of the human race is what propels us to continue forward and to come out victorious.
This race that we call life and it’s participation in it… is what allows us to feel the F.E.A.R. but still lay our heads upon our pillows at night and “NEVER awake from the American Dream”!!!
You cannot lose what you never had.