Life According to Johanna

What I learned in school was that America was founded on the concept of escaping autocratic rule that was unjust.  What I have learned in life is that it is not about autocracy, rather it is more about unceasing greed and the willingness to use wealth as a means to garner more wealth through any possible deed.

I do not think that people escaped to America so much because they were chasing “freedom”.  Instead I believe that people escaped to America in hopes of economic gain.  European aristocracy was so oppressive that the only means for people to have any hope to keep what they earned was to flee and escape.

I am thinking that the world is looking that way again.  Once again, the wealthy are using oppression to control others and keep others from gaining any wealth.

History teaches us, but the world changes; average, everyday people are finding power with each other.  Those who would oppress, chase us into corners rather than to distant shores.

Do you really need “shops” to browse through and at the end of the day, macaroni and cheese?  It seems like lately… all we talk about is what makes us comfortable and our own comfort food.

I’m guessing that we are a culture that is at the top of Maslow’s hierarchy.  We have conquered hunger, for the most part, and we do not know what to focus on and how to find our actualized self.  But – I am telling you that actualization will NOT be found in macaroni and cheese AND endless discussions about our own comfort.

The world is NOT about us, it just isn’t.  The world has it’s own agenda, we are just part of it.  Our personal comfort does not even make the top 10.

So really… stop.  It’s not about you, your comfort, and really, it is not even about your self actualization.  The world is more…so much more.

• In everyday life, true fights materialize.

  No championship belts, no grand prize – just the reason you rise and strive to overcome.

  It’s not about what battles you’ve won – it’s what you stand for.
  …
  It’s sacrificing your comfort and carrying on for a cause, it’s for self-satisfaction and not the applause, it’s tearing down walls.

  It’s what you exercise your might for, we all should have something to fight for.

  And my fight matters – does yours?

Something that Oprah said a while back has troubled me.  Oprah was doing a local interview with a Tampa Bay reporter and the subject of her wealth came up.  There was a comment made about the difference between being a billionaire and a millionaire and Oprah said something to the effect of “Don’t ever let anyone tell you that it isn’t important or that it makes no difference, because there is a HUGE difference.”  What I need is clarification of what she meant by that.  I think that in the wake of the recently revealed research that says that the wealthy, live substantially longer than the destitute, I think that it matters what you mean when you say that having money makes a huge difference in your life.  I can only conjecture that having money means that your stress is less and according to medical research a stress free life is a key to a long life.  It is also true that you get better and faster lifelong medical care if you have money. 

At the end of the day; who you are and what you do is not dependent on whether you spent the day in a 500 square foot home or 60,000 square foot home.  Who you are and what you do is more about you than what you have.  Trust me; I am not one of those minimalists that believe that “nothing” is better because I have nothing.  Not at all, I love clothes and shoes and beautiful jewelry, I can be as crassly commercial as the next person.  No – I am not a nun or an ascetic.

Here is what I mean: people who have money may have less stress in their life and that may mean that they live longer.  Character-ologically, they are who they are, money or not.  If you are a pedophile, you are a person who wants to have sex with children and no amount of money is going to make you a better person.  If you are a loving and nurturing human being – being wealthy with money – will not change that, you may have more opportunities to be nurturing (because of your wealth) but money will not change you into something that you are not.  So, if you spent today in a 1,000 square foot home and what you did was to take care of an infant in a loving way, you are no different than someone who did the same thing in a 10,000 square foot home.  You are, however, very different than the person who physically and emotionally abused their family today.   The person who beats their child in a 1,000 square foot house is not different than the person who beats their child in a 10,000 square foot house.

So I say that money is NOT the answer, but is only a variable in an equation.  I think that the answer to the equation is always YOU.  Who are you?

I really want something in my life to be different than it is.  When I was younger, change seemed good and growth was always a possibility.  I am not old, yet somehow I feel that wanting something in my life to be different, is old.

At some point, shouldn’t your life just be satisfying, the way that it is?  Can one do without the yearning, the changing and the growing?  Can we not just be, in this moment at this time, the world is enough, it is as it should be and nothing need be different.

Jillian Hunter, 2012.

Indeed battles often find us, we wish they would go away of their own volition, but they do not.  Bravery is often a surprise, even to ourselves.

If you can buy something that is pretty and valuable, go ahead and do it.  Remember, you are living your LIFE now, not later.

I do think that people know what they are doing to each other – in the moment of the exchange is perception.  The perception is knowledge.

Don’t believe anyone (including yourself) who says “I didn’t know”.

Lies and excuses, not so much.

for all human beings that a few human beings operate with such greed and avarice.