When Money Doesn't Matter
Reprint from Life Unplugged Column, Tucson Green Times. Marchby Susan L. Feathers
What would living be like if money didn’t matter? In a cultural milieu permeated by value in dollars, is it even possible to think otherwise?
For five delicious years I worked for myself. Then the economy tanked and I found the need to return to working for an organization.
I am on the doll now. Suddenly I recalled the truncated thinking caused by living from pay check to pay check—bookends of capitalist culture!
As a sole proprietor, I was in charge of how much the government got from me and kept my money until time to pay the piper. It feels very much now like I am caught up again in the social system that impoverishes the majority of us—a form of cleverly cloaked serfdom.
In American culture can we ever be free of the entanglement with money?
I have encountered a social group doing just that: they are children of the millennial generation. Born in the ‘90’s, these young adults make choices based on inspiration.
At my new workplace, where men and women in their twenties and early thirties wage intellectual war, many gave up high paying jobs to work on the front line of environmental advocacy for a clean planet.
Money doesn’t matter to them. They are part of vast social networks, in the flesh and in the virtual map of friendships they cultivate online. That is their security, not what’s in the bank.
Don’t get me wrong…they still need to pay their bills, so they are not completely without thoughts about money, but in the main, it is not on their minds. Friendships are the social capital.
A typical scene is the Monday morning staff call-in. We gather in one big room with people sitting on the floor or perched atop desks, and staff in other cities call in.
As each person reports what’s happening in their legislative district—the co-sponsors gained on important bills in state or federal legislatures—cheers go up! Words of encouragement abound. The group dynamic is infectious.
Being among these young folks has caused me to rethink my own attitude about money and material things. They seem to ride a wave of electric energy with the sure knowledge their efforts can and will change this world for the good.
The tired, dim future portrayed on CNN by a daily chorus of talking heads who can’t imagine anything other than what we’ve got, falls away in the presence of the millennial generation transforming a culture by sheer determination and good will.
I am very glad of it. They are long overdue.