Is Ignorance Really Bliss?

I don't really use the word ignorance anymore, because I don’t feel you are. What I've replaced that with is vagueness. It is my feeling, and so many things that I look at these days confirm this, that so many of us are living in terminal vagueness when it comes to our money, how much of it we spend, exactly what we earn and exactly what do we need to live on.

I believe that we all need a serious financial wake-up call and the alarm is sounding! We are in what is being called the worst recession ever. Well, I'm not sure that someone living through the late 1920s and early 1930s would not beg to differ and tell you that was the worst ever.

We are indeed going through a challenging time. In fact, in my opinion, we are in the midst of a serious wake-up call and how better to be woken up than to be hit in our pocket books? We got woken up in August of 2005 with Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. However, if we didn't live in that area and weren’t hit personally by that tragedy, it all seemed to go away and we don't have to think about it anymore.

The tsunami happened and, yes, that was yet another tragedy (wake-up call), however, that was in a completely different country then the United States so it didn't affect many of us in this country personally. So unless we had a friend or knew someone who was there at the time, it too went away.

Then there was the earthquake in Haiti and there was more talk about it and though it was more recent, it too has gone away, so to speak. Of course these things have not gone away, but they have not, for the most part, personally affected us.

Many of us have been affected by this downturn in the economy and, where money is concerned (since it seems to be the most volatile and yet important thing in our society), the effect is farther reaching and considered tragic on many levels.

Rather than react to where we are financially, where the world is financially or where the neighbors are financially, whether it's good or bad, the question is: how to respond? When we continue to react and try to force something to change, as is evidenced “out there”, it continues to get worse and it grows.

When we respond and calm down long enough to take a look at exactly what's going on - "What is my individual part in it and how has it affected me individually?" - then we can start the process of healing inward and take that outward.

I am not saying that we only think about ourselves and just keep our focus there. I am saying that when we start taking personal responsibility to respond to our individual situation and work at that level, from within first, then real healing can grow. When we can be an example of “I did it, so can you, let me show you how” then a whole lot of individuals together can create a change.

I don't hear a lot of talk about the vagueness that is so predominant around money and finances today. I hear a lot of blame and shame and even that’s getting to be vague. As long as we keep shaming and blaming and making it about somebody else before we clean our own backyard, that shame, blame and anger grows and we continue to get nowhere.

So my friends, the alarm is sounding (not has sounded), it continues to sound. How are you going to choose to respond? Why not join me in a personal revolution of ”my response is going to be personal responsibility, I will start with me and then move on to the world from there”.

I believe, from personal experience, that personal responsibility and work begins with CLARITY - NOT having terminal vagueness, burying our head in the sand, believing ignorance is bliss and thinking "if I just don't pay attention to it the problem will go away".

Join me in the personal revolution of “vagueness to clarity equals prosperity”!

Reva Kussmaul
CVO – MoneyVisions
http://www.moneyvisions.net