One More Day Alive

Something amazing is happening all around us. As one of the worst economic downturns in history struck this nation last year, the nation has responded not by crumbling under the strain, but by downsizing, reprioritizing and reassessing their values. The results – a nation that saves more, spends less on things they don’t need, while remarkably has continued to give to charity.

That’s amazing and almost too hard to believe, if it weren’t true. And what it says about human nature is nothing less than extraordinary.

Here are the facts. Amidst an economy that saw housing values in many areas drop in half, an unemployment rate that nearly doubled and 54% of human services charities report a rise in human services requests, it was no doubt that people are hurting. We have all felt the hit in one way shape or form.

Yet look at some of these surprising effects.

The Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index – a Gallup poll that rates how Americans feel about the quality of their lives actually went up since last June.

Another Gallup poll shows that Americans have not only cut back on their expenses because of these tough times, something that you would obviously expect, but that that they have come to terms with their new budgets and aren’t that worried anymore. In other words, they have changed their expectations of what they want and they need.

The study showed that 71% saying they are cutting back on their spending and 88% saying they are watching their spending very closely.

But the result of that is that 78% of Americans now say they have enough money to satisfy their basic needs.

That brings up two points in my slightly twisted reality; one is that the situation is not quite as dire as some would have us believe. But secondly, that Americans have a pretty amazing ability to adapt, especially when they realize what and who is important in their lives. And this crisis has apparently helped us to do that.

And that brings me to my third amazing realization – giving.

Despite all the hardships that occurred over the last year, the total amount of charitable giving in the United States exceeded $300 billion for the second year in a row in 2008, according to Giving USA 2009. Donations reached an estimated $307.65 billion in 2008.

Now admittedly and significantly that was a 2 percent drop over 2007, but considering that the economic climate was reduced by a whole lot more, that’s pretty amazing reorganizing and reprioritizing. A caveat to that number is that religious donations soared to $106.89 billion – an increase of an estimated 5.5 percent.

Now let me throw in one more little interesting study for good measure The latest Gallup Values and Beliefs Poll, conducted annually each May, this year found the number of people who say that the moral values of America are getting better to have increased – in fact it doubled since the beginning of the year.

Christ once said that money was the root to all evil. Discussions of the meaning of that phrase about in theological circles, but generally it is believed to mean that the vicious and unrestrained pursuit of money at all costs lead down the primrose path.

So maybe an economy that forces us to slow down in that pursuit and reevaluat what we ant and need isn’t such a bad thing.

That doenst mean that we shouldn’t keep trying to improve, but that maybe fixing our economy isn’t as necessary as fixing our values.

After all if we all can whether this much of an economic hit and still be ok, maybe are perceptions of what we needed weren’t so clear in the first place.

But maybe they will be a whole lot clearer because of it.

Bookmark It

Hide Sites

• Americans remain the winners, and leaders Despite differences Catholics and Christians might have with Barack Obama and Joe Biden, they must be respected. However, it is the duty of believers to fight for their beliefs in the public square. Now that the most expensive election in U.S. history is behind us, let me echo the gracious......
• INSURING THE RIGHT TO LIFE Consensus has a value, especially when it is reached through a common high value rather than the lowest common denominator. Isn’t it about time we find that when it comes to health care? It seems like that highest common value should and could be the respect for human life. The......
• What’s the rush? Good things come to those who wait Life is long. That’s not a typo. Yes, I really did mean long — not short like you hear so many people say. For most of us, when you add up all the experiences, the opportunities, the minutes, the seconds and the hours, a life is a lot longer than......
• Good News for the Strong at Heart! With Independence Day just around the corner, it might be a nice time to reflect on how fortunate we all are to live in this amazing nation, even when it seems like everywhere you turn things have gone wrong  over the past few years. But some amazing things have also......
• One Mother's Death-Defying Choice, and Her Son's Life-Giving Sacrifice of love " A few years ago I met an amazing mother who risked her life to protect her unborn baby. After years of praying to God for a child, Robyn and her husband finally heard the words they always dreamed of hearing: they were going to have a baby. But there......

• On new rules for writing off charitable gifts Free Money Finance commented on new rules regarding taking federal tax deductions for charitable gifts. Among the new rules:You can't write off junk. If it isn't in "good" condition, you may be disallowed the deduction.Stuff worth more than $500 needs...
• Giving a Lasting Gift to a Baby (But Not the Parents)? Today, instead of the usual Friday guest post, I'll be passing forward a question I received yesterday from a frequent commenter. Why no guest post - because I've been a grade A gluteus maximus orifice to a lot of personal...
• Guide to Buying a Dobro Dobros, which are resonator guitars, are very interesting musical instruments that seem to come and go in terms of popularity. Choosing the right Dobro when you first begin playing is a really important decision, because quality is absolutely everything when...
• Today's Climate and What It Means for Winter Sports in 2009-2010 [/caption]With temperatures leveling off in recent years and a particularly mild summer across the United States here in 2009, it's fair to say that we can expect a long and cold winter. We don't need a groundhog to tell us...
• Is 2X Your Salary a Good Retirement Goal? Boston Gal's Open Wallet asks do you have two times your income saved for retirement? The most interesting part of the article was concept of a crossover point your retirement savings. The crossover point is when you make more from...