By this time I am sure you all have received your share of holiday emails and messages reminding you all of all the things that you have to be grateful for, so I won’t bore you with another.
Since I spend most of the year telling you how great your lives are, I thought I would switch gears at this time of year, and remind you of all the things that you have to be annoyed by.
So after you are done with Christmas dinner, I want you all to take a few moments to consider the following:
All the great presents who wished you received that you didn’t. (Can you believe they actually thought you would like that junk they bought you!)
How the holidays turn mildly annoying everyday traffic into lousy logjams filled with totally rude, incompetent drivers who are capable of turning even the most loving and tolerant people into proponents of capital punishment.
The way your company cut back on the Christmas party by having everyone bring something to eat and then docked your paycheck for the time you spent at the party.
Your boss, or boss’s boss – one of them is probably a thorn in your side.
The lovely pre-holiday letter from your bank informing you of the new fees they will charging next year. Happy New Year!
GAS PRICES!!!!
That weird, annoying guy in your neighborhood who tries tirelessly to piss everybody else off – and succeeds!
Your kid’s idiot teacher who seems to know less about the subject matter than the students but insists your child is the source of all the problems in their class.
CONGRESS!
Government red tape!
Corporate greed!
Kim Kardashian – or any Kardashian!
Mindless, stupid newscasts!
Doomsayers, and anyone who finds a way to turn a normal conversation into a discussion of the Mayan calendar and the end of the world.
TAXES!
Ok, are you all pretty disgusted and fumed now? Are you ready to go postal at your local post office now? (Provided the budget cuts didn’t close that one down.)
Now take a deep breath, and think about all the people in your life who make all that crap worth putting up with.
MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAVE A WONDERFUL, BLESSED NEW YEAR MAKING ALL OF THEM AS HAPPY AS YOU CAN!
Profit and public responsibility, or at least accountability, are not unrelated. In fact, maybe they are inexorably connected to each other. But don’t just take my word for it.
The recent backlash over proposed new debit card fees by banks in America is the perfect example. The fact that those banks finally listened to the protestations of their customers is the best news yet for the future of America – and the future of capitalism.
Because the last two years have been a real test for business in America making many wonder if capitalism would survive the backlash of public protests.
But the reality is that outside of a few wacky extremists crying for outright socialism most Americans don’t oppose capitalism or profits. What they are fed up, and rightfully so, is the proliferation of unfettered GREED and the rise of an embarrassingly irresponsible corporate culture of selfishness!
Case in point: the debit card fee fiasco. This all began in September after Bank of America foolishly decided to try to nickel and dime the American public (the same American public who bailed them out with a huge stimulus just a few years ago) by adding a $5-a-month fee to use debit cards. Other banks soon announced they would do the same.
Within a few months there was a huge public outcry from customers with many threatening to leave en masse. All this finally made all the banks including Bank of America reverse their decision.
Now obviously these banks changed their minds because they realized that in this particular situation they stood to lose customers. And that would cost them more profit in the long run than they would make in the short run by adding the fees.
But maybe this is more than just an isolated case. Maybe it means that corporate America is remembering the bottom line of capitalism is not just dollars, but SENSE too – common sense that says that caring about people, about the world around you will improve your profits. That’s because people are more apt to work for and buy from companies that are nice instead of nasty. It is proven time and time again.
Henry Ford, one of the greatest, and most successful, capitalists in American history – the father of the assembly line – purposely raised his employees’ salaries more than he needed to in order to enable them to buy his cars. That wasn’t just because he was a nice guy. He knew it would create generations of Ford Customers that would inevitably in the long run earn the company much more than it cost in the short run. But the byproduct of that was he made a whole lot of employees happier and better off too, and he was probably the happier for it as well!
Now I do not think it is government’s responsibility to make these companies act morally. (The exception is when the whole game is rigged for instance in the case of collusion or monopoly.) We need free will and free markets in order for moral decisions to be possible. God does not make us do the right thing, and neither should government.
I truly believe eventually the people will get tired of being taken advantage of, and they will rise up and make these companies do the right thing with the power of their wallets.
But if everything I have said is true then it begs the question: Why have there been so many short-sighted selfish companies in the last few decades in America?
The answer is simple – stupidity! If everyone (the companies, the employees and the consumers) prospers more in the long run, by running a considerate and socially responsible business, then only a fool would do differently.
But thank God some of those fools are beginning to wise up.
There’s been a lot of talk lately about how our mounting debt crisis is going to saddle our children and our grandchildren with great difficulty.
Well, thank God we are finally talking about our children. Now maybe we can start talking about all the ways we need to help them right now as well as in the future.
Twenty years ago the first article I ever wrote professionally was an opinion article in the local daily newspaper that was inspired by an interview I did with the director of St. Mary’s Food Bank. He informed me the hunger rate in children was a whopping 25 percent.
It was unfathomable to me that a quarter of our children could be going to bed hungry every night. Unlike adults, children are helpless to help themselves out of such a situation.
So why would we possibly allow such a situation to continue?
In 2011, the state of our children is still in jeopardy. There is still a 20 percent hunger rate in children. The good news is that’s down 5 percent; the bad news is that it’s still too high. And when you add to that the deficits children face in the availability of health care and education, it begs the question why.
I dare to be optimistic and suggest it’s not because we can’t change it, but maybe it’s because we are way too accustomed to feeling good in our society — at the expense of our children. But a little attitude shift could change everything.
Just look at the number of children who have been sacrificed to abortion — 42 million globally each year. The number one reason given for wanting an abortion in this country is not hardship but inconvenience.
But a friend who had an abortion 10 years ago because she thought a child would get in the way of her life recently confided in me how differently she now sees things. After a lifetime of pain, suffering and loneliness, she realizes the life she could have had with that child, not to mention the life she could have created and fostered would more than outweigh the loss of her “freedom.”
Look at the huge surge of drug use in the “if-it-feels-good -do-it” 1960s, ’70s and ’80s in America, and then look at the fact that since 1986, more than 70 percent of the child welfare cases in America have been shown to be caused in some part by substance abuse.
My prayers are with any individual who has ever suffered from a drug addiction. But I hope with all my heart that anyone with a child comes to their senses and realizes that the life of their child is at stake every time they give in to their addiction.
Maybe we don’t all need as many comforts, as many excuses, as many vices, as many conveniences, or to “feel good” as much as we think.
Thirty years ago my Fr. turned down a high-paying job in Los Angeles because I had asthma and he knew the smog would kill me. My mother sacrificed a career as an opera singer to be a mother to three children. They knew their most important job was being parents.
Ten years ago I interviewed a retired chief petty officer and nurse living on modest wages who decided to adopt 10 foster children because they knew those children needed them.
Maybe what we need — and what will serve us even more in the long run — is if we step up to the plate to take care of our kids, to give them the education, the resources and the attention they need, even it means sacrificing a little of what we think we need.
Then hopefully all this talk about the future of our children will make its way into the present.
As we continue to face tough times in our nation and our world, let’s help each other to remember all the blessings that God sends us every day through others who touch us with their selfless love.
I know you have heard all that before. But it’s easy to forget those kind pick-me-ups, such as the way someone smiled at the grocery store or how a family member went the extra mile to let us know how loved we are.
It’s important to remind ourselves of how special every single person we meet is and how much they make a difference. Remember, too, that we have the opportunity to give all that love back.
Becoming thankful
But how exactly do we remind ourselves of all that long after we are done reading this column or when the Sunday church bells have long faded into the chaos and the catastrophes of the week?
That’s where the blessings bottle project comes in.
First, go rummage around your house for an old vase or glass jar that you have always liked but that doesn’t get enough use. Or take a trip to your local St. Vincent de Paul Thrift Store. You will find all kinds of forgotten yet beautiful bottles sitting up on top of the shelves; usually it will only set you back a buck or two.
Each week between now and Christmas, you and your family will write down one blessing you have to be grateful for on a piece of paper and put in the jar.
Think of blessings that go beyond having the fanciest car on the block, or being the best-dressed person at work. You should probably shy away from anything having to do with hitting the lotto, too.
Try to focus on things like how people came to help you last week when you were sick or remembering the people who celebrated with you on your birthday. Or maybe the way somebody picked you up the last time you were down.
If you keep up with it, you should have at least a dozen or so in there within the next few months.
Then on Christmas day, after all the other presents are opened, take down the jar and start reading all the wondrous ways that you have been blessed, and it will be the greatest Christmas gift of all.
If you want, then you can empty it out and start all over to get ready for Easter.
Then keep the glass out somewhere for the rest of the year in plain sight where it will be a permanent pick-me-up.
Eventually you will get into the habit of realizing just how much you have to be thankful for. Once you do it will totally transform your head, your heart and the way you look at life.
In fact, you will become so enthusiastic and grateful about your life that you will probably start being a real pain to all those negative people out there who insist on being angry and ungrateful.
And as the old saying goes, “You should be so lucky!”
As Labor Day appraoches so does too the unofficial end of summer and happily the end of the summer heat. The long weekend is celebrated with backyard barbecues and pool parties, as families and friends gather together for one last chance to have some summer fun, while football fans everywhere celebrate the beginning of football season.
But do any of us really stop and think about what Labor Day is really about and why it was important enough to be a holiday in the first place? Well, the first Labor Day in the United States became a federal holiday in 1894 as a way for the government to reconcile with unions and citizens in general, after workers were killed by U.S. Marshals during the Pullman Strike, 15 years earlier.
The killing was of course one of those tragic and unintended mishaps, but it made many in the country realize that there needed to be some safeguards installed in our system that would help to protect laborers from exploitation and abuse. Making Labor Day an official holiday was meant to signal that our government recognized that the everyday laborer, no matter how menial the job, was important, had an innate value, and was worthy of all the same human rights of business owners, gentry and those in government. And that they would never again be forgotten or mistreated.
In other words, Labor Day is supposed to remind us not only of the value of hard work, but that all those who do it are human beings, not just cogs in a machine.
But this Labor Day maybe it’s an even more poignant reminder for a very important and overlooked particular group of workers: the unemployed. Those struggling to find work are just as important, valuable and meaningful as everyone else — and it is important to remember that in the search for new work.
Helping each other
With the unemployment rate hovering above 9 percent, we all need to help those without work to find it. It’s our Christian duty to help them.
Because when we are not able to work, we feel less than human somehow, less than involved, less than important. And nobody should ever feel that.
Just as the federal government eventually recognized that every worker needed to be treated as a human being with human rights, not just as a means to production, we must all remember that our value is not just what we can produce in our labor.
We derive our value from God, and from the knowledge that we were created to love and be loved. One of the ways we can do that is by working and helping society with something that it needs. Another one of the ways that we realize that value is by letting people love us and to let them experience the divinely ordained joy that comes from that. There should never be any shame involved in needing others.
So if you are looking for work, reach out to anyone you know and proudly tell them you want to work, and ask if they know anyone who needs someone of your exquisite and unique value.
And for all of you who know anyone who needs work, it is your duty to help them to regain their feelings of worth and value, and to help them find work.
Times are tough all over, and we all need to stop thinking that “help” is a four letter word. We all need to work together in every way we can to celebrate the value of humanity — and that’s something we can really celebrate this Labor Day.
Let’s start the year off right and realize how incredible all of us are. When push comes to shove, we love more than hate, we help more than hurt, and we care more than we care less about others. Let’s remember all those wonderful people out there who helped all the rest of us wonderful people make it through another year.
I have more of an opportunity than most to see that outpouring of love by writing stories about people reaching out to others, and giving talks to people from all walks of life all over America who tell me their wonderful accounts of those who rose to meet the needs of others.
Like the outpouring of emails and supportive notes I received after my last column when I wrote of the young mother who almost wound up on the streets because of a temporary financial hardship. Not only did so many of you sympathize with her, but one reader even offered her a free house to live in for a few months if she needed to get back on her feet.
Or the young lady who came to one of my talks and spoke passionately about her financial woes after losing her father, her marriage and her job, all within a few months. Within minutes she was embraced by several in the crowd who offered guidance, understanding and job references. Later in the year she showed up at a totally unrelated Catholic gathering brimming with joy – and employment – having found solidarity and support from the many who reached out to help in the Catholic community.
With times tough all over, the cynics would expect self-serving people to be hoarding, not offering, whatever blessings they had to others.
But therein lies the rub. We are independent in America, but by no means selfish. We are constantly looking for ways to help others, especially when the chips are down.
That’s why giving to charity continued to be upwards of $300 billion last year yet again.
That’s why the crime rate is down, even as unemployment and frustrations are up.
That’s why the divorce rate is down, as families realize it’s better to stick together.
And that’s why, despite all the troubles and tribulations, we continue to love each other, to help each other, and to spur each other on as if we were inexorably connected – as if we were all part of something bigger than ourselves.
We are part of something more – it’s called the Body of Christ.
When we remember that, we rediscover our reason for being and our courage to push on amidst the steady stream of pain, suffering and struggle.
So as we continue to fight the good fight, let’s not forget what we are fighting for. Here’s a helpful reminder, a list of five questions to refresh your memory. Fill it out and fill up your life with all the love that’s already there.
Happy New Year!
Road map to happiness
- Who do you love (pick one person) and why are they so special to you?
- What’s the nicest thing anybody ever did for you and how did it inspire or help you?
- What’s the kindest thing you ever did for anybody else that helped to make their day or their life better? How has helping that person enhanced your own life?
- What is something positive that you saw somebody else do yesterday or today to help someone else which filled your heart with happiness? It could be a family member, a friend or even a complete stranger who you felt made somebody happy.
- Who loves you and how do they show it? How has their love changed your life?
Last month, just a few weeks before Thanksgiving, I walked into a coffee shop I frequent and the ever-effervescent girl behind the counter was ashen face, with smears of wiped-away tears revealing what her brave face was otherwise trying to hide. She was in trouble.
“What’s wrong?” I asked sincerely and quietly, making sure we had a private moment.
“I can’t pay my rent this month, and I think my daughter and I will be kicked out of our apartment. I really don’t know what to do.” She went on to explain the personal series of unforeseen events that had led to a shortfall this month, almost too ashamed to elaborate.
Luckily I know a few things about how to get help in such situations. I told her to contact her local St. Vincent de Paul which assists those in short-term financial need with help paying their rents or mortgages as well as for utilities and groceries.
Things worked out. Thank God I asked. But what if I hadn’t? And what if she hadn’t told me?
A couple of years back, I wrote about the importance of asking for help. Since then the world has been turned upside down financially, and this Christmas there are even more people in need in this nation. If you are one of them, don’t be afraid, ashamed or just plain too shy to ask for help.
God wants you to get help if you need it. In fact, if you don’t ask, you are doing yourself, God and the rest of the world a big disservice.
Here’s why. Answer these simple questions: Do you enjoy helping others? Do you grow in your spirit and in your relationship with God and others when you help? Of course you do. What would happen to you if others never allowed you to help them? That would be denying you all the grace that you receive through loving others.
You should be proud of your need. Because it allows people to help you, and enables God to work through them in your life, bestowing grace upon them as well.
So if you don’t allow others to help you, you are denying them their access to that same grace. And the only way that others really know you need help is if you ask for it.
God created us to live in community with each other. He designed us to need each other. I am not smart enough to understand everything God did and does, but I do know what is in the Bible. And the idea that we are created in the image of God and that all human life is sacred and innately valuable is irrefutable.
If all that is true, do you think that God wants you to disrespect yourself or subject yourself to abuse? Denying yourself the love and support of others who God works through is not respecting yourself and others.
Now all of this is not a rubber stamp for all those children out there to spend the next couple of weeks nagging their parents for all the toys their hearts desire. I am clearly talking about those who are in true human need reaching out to others.
And that also doesn’t mean you cannot give at the same time as you receive in whatever way you can. Though you may not believe it right now, you reaching out may allow someone else to talk about their needs, to share with you their feelings or simply to cultivate a new relationship or deepen an old one in a way that will help that person now or in the future.
For instance, a few weeks later I rushed out of the house without my wallet — and the coffee was on the house.
Merry Christmas!
Anyone who would like to contribute to the Society of St. Vincent de Paul may do so by calling (602) 850-6737. Those needing help this Christmas can contact their local parish SVdP
October 16th
10 am
St. Rose’s Parent/Teen Picnic and Retreat
Good Shepherd Mission
45033 North 12th Street
New River, AZ
A Grand Canyon University Sponsored Event
October 24th
7 pm
St. Theresa’s Youth Group
St. Theresa Parish
5045 E. Thomas Road
Phoenix, AZ
A Grand Canyon University Sponsored Event
October 30th
Singles Talk
Mount Claret
4633 N. 54th Street
Phoenix, AZ
A Grand Canyon University Sponsored Event
November 8th
8 am
Seton High School
Featured Keynote to School Assembly
7 pm
Talk to Parents
1150 N Dobson Road
Chandler , AZ
A Grand Canyon University Sponsored Event
November 19-20
Overcoming Life’s 7 Common Tragedies Retreat
Bishop de Falco Retreat Center
2100 North Spring
Amarillo, TX
806-383-1811
December 1st
7 pm
Holy Cross Youth Group
1244 S. Power Rd.
Mesa AZ
A Grand Canyon University Sponsored Event
December 4th
Advent Parish Mission/St. Rose’s
Good Shepherd Mission
45033 North 12th Street
New River, AZ
A Grand Canyon University Sponsored Event
Walt Disney was fired from his first job drawing farm animals for a farm journal. John van Hengle, the founder of St. Mary’s Food Bank, lost his advertising job and wound up practically homeless before finding his way.
Both of them changed the world.
Have you lost your job? Are you hurting financially, struggling to get back in the game? You are not alone. But your job loss could be the ultimate opportunity to find your true purpose and to realize that losing your job should not mean you have lost your value.
The unemployment rate in the United States is around 9.6%. That’s a staggering number. But it’s what happens after the job is lost that is the real tragedy.
We have been programmed in America over the last few decades to believe that we derive our value as a human being from our ability to make money. The idea we can find our “net worth” by adding up all our debts and assets and arriving at our value as a human being is preposterous.
Your real, innate value was made by God and that’s what inspires your economic value, not the other way around. Realizing that is the first step to getting back on your feet.
In fact that’s actually how capitalism is supposed to work. It’s not predicated on greed and selfishness but actually meant to inspire people to use their God-given gifts, ideas and abilities to provide the world with something it needs. They are then rewarded with what they need. Or in the words of the late Pope John Paul II “the free market is the most efficient instrument for utilizing resources and effectively responding to needs.”
Unfortunately capitalism hasn’t worked real well over the last few years because too many people were either cheating the system or simply looking to make an easy buck instead. Moral responsibility is an integral and irreplaceable component of both a healthy society and a healthy economy.
But therein lies an amazing opportunity to help set the system straight again. How do we do that? By doing what God put us here to do – to use our gifts to improve the world.
Every one of us has something the world needs, and by learning how to share that gift with the world for all the right reasons, we are rewarded with what we need eventually.
Your desire and ability to reach out to and contribute to the world is a divinely inspired asset that can and will still lead you to long-term and stable career success once you engage it. Finding your mission is finding the job or career that will allow you to do that.
Yes, it doesn’t always happen overnight, and it’s not always so easy. It took good old Walt a decade of struggling to make ends meet, and after John van Hengle lost his job, he did everything from lifeguard to bus driver to working in a soup kitchen before he found his calling helping the hungry, only after he came to know and understand hunger himself.
Not to be overly simplistic but God does work in mysterious ways. Your value is assigned by God, and it is not rooted in how much you earn, but in HOW and WHY you earn.
The world needs you somewhere and somehow right now. Maybe it’s through a volunteer organization where you can obtain some of your needs in return or a part-time job or turning a favorite hobby into a freelance job. Get out there and find out how you can help because the world needs a lot of help.
That might not just help you to find a new job but a whole new career and greater happiness than you have ever known.
Chris Benguhe’s latest book, “Overcoming Life’s 7 Common Tragedies,” is available on Amazon.com. His website is www.OneMoreDayAlive.com.
By Chris Benguhe
Is humanity evil, and is it government’s responsibility to rehabilitate it?
Or is mankind innately good, and with the most basic of oversight and moral motivation will the majority of us choose to do the right thing, allowing government to focus on controlling only the most aberrant humans?
Maybe Michael Moore didn’t think about answering those questions before he concocted his attack on capitalism a few years back. But as President Obama attempts to “fundamentally transform” our nation by restructuring our economy, our society, and our national mindset hoping to ultra-regulate America out of immoral business practices and legislate morality with new social policies – these are a couple of questions which really need to be answered.
There are plenty of examples for the evil humanity argument. Over the last few years, we saw greedy hedge fund managers play a shell game with investors and invested funds. We watched everyday people lie about income and fraudulently promise to pay more than they could afford, so they could have more than they needed in a nation seemingly obsessed with having more, bigger and better stuff.
Then we topped it all off with Wall Street financiers and Big Business bosses looking for government bailout packages, unions refusing to negotiate wages for the good of ALL the employees and the nation, and everyday folks all looking for what their country can do for them, instead of the other way around.
What do all these things have in common? They are all selfish and immoral. But was any of this really the fault of capitalism? Or was it actually quite the opposite, that these were all directly or indirectly the result of a combination of government intervention, greed and irresponsible stupidity and could capitalism save us?
To determine that, first we might have to get out from under the recent tirade of media maniacs deriding capitalism, to get a little background on how capitalism actually works.
You see, if you believe that human beings are inherently good, then you are also a fan of capitalism. Because you also believe that people will eventually act in the best interest of society more often than not, when left to their own devices in a free market system. But when the system is played around with too much, for instance when government favors one industry, or group over another, such as the oil industry, or the real estate industry, or the auto industry, then it screws everything up. That stops people from doing the right thing, which they already wanted to do. At least that’s the idea behind the philosophy of capitalism. It also leads way too many people to forget about what’s best for them and the rest of society because they are so busy trying to beat the system of government regulation.
Don’t take my word for it – listen to Adam Smith, the founder of modern capitalism.
Most unethical opportunists today point to Smith’s claims in his famous “Wealth of Nations” that self-interests alone are what make capitalism work. But Smith wrote another book. In his “Theory of Moral Sentiments,” he explains “self-interest” includes the interest of the rest of society, since the social acceptance, status, and support of all affects the interests of the individual. He argues only a society which values social justice achieved through community and moral obligations can achieve prosperity.
In simpler terms any capitalist with a brain in his head knows that for him to prosper in the long run, so too must his neighbors, his community, his nation and his world prosper. Maybe the real problem is that a few too many of us capitalists forgot about that recently.
But Smith doesn’t stop there. He says not only “should’ we act morally, but free from the tyranny of government we “want” to act morally.
Says Smith: “However selfish man may be supposed, there are evidently some principles in his nature, which interest him in the fortune of others, and render their happiness necessary to him, though they derive nothing from it except the pleasure of seeing it.”
That’s probably why despite the all the financial doom going on in America, Americans, left to their own compulsion to care gave over $300 billion away last year. None of that was caused by Obama’s stimulus package. It was given of our free will.
That, by the way, is another positive precept of capitalism – it fosters free will, which is a basic requirement for morality. You cannot be moral if someone has forced you to do so. That’s the whole theological argument behind why God allows people to sin, because if he didn’t they could not choose to love Him and choose to do the right thing.
So maybe capitalism is a good thing, a moral thing. If so, then will less capitalism mean less morality? Or to put it more specifically, do we want government to tell our businesses and our people how to behave ethically ironically leading most of us to do the opposite?
Will such heavy-handed attempts simply enrage free-willed Americans making them less apt to act in accordance with their conscience? Will taking away our free will make us incapable of loving and respecting each other? A quick look back at the Soviet Union suggests so.
Do we really want to live in an Orwellian world where Big Brother forces us by dictatorial edict to do what it believes is right, or should we leave people alone to choose to act morally and let government concentrate on protecting the right to life, liberty and the PURSUIT of happiness?
We better choose now before the choice is taken away.
Categories
Tag Cloud
abortion Benguhe capitalism Catholic TV celebrities charity christmas crime earn Economy employment faith giving Guns happiness healthcare heroism hope how to ask for help how to be ethical how to find a job how to help insurance is capitalism evil jobs labor love mental health money morality Obama redemption religion respect respect for life right to life robbery role models Success tough times TV unemployment Valentine's Day welfare workArchives
- December 2011
- November 2011
- October 2011
- September 2011
- August 2011
- July 2011
- June 2011
- May 2011
- March 2011
- February 2011
- January 2011
- December 2010
- November 2010
- October 2010
- September 2010
- August 2010
- July 2010
- June 2010
- May 2010
- April 2010
- March 2010
- February 2010
- December 2009
- November 2009
- October 2009
- September 2009
- August 2009
- July 2009
- May 2009
- April 2009
- March 2009
- January 2009
- December 2008
- November 2008
- May 2008
- April 2008
- March 2008
- February 2008
- November 2007
