Pogonomics

Part III of a Three Part Series

[note: italicized words are those that were given special definitions by Joe in Part I]

What are your personal values?

When our actions are in alignment with our values, we experience wholeness – integrity.

Money is not only a lien on a physical resource, it is also a lien on our personal resource: we sold X number of hours of our life to acquire Y dollars. Since money is unique to the human species, we can even say that money = human life energy!

How we spend our life-energy and how we spend our money are direct measurements of the degree of alignment between our actions and our values.

When we spend money for a resource we must ask: "Is this money spent in alignment with my values?"

Fulfillment, by its very definition, is a function of knowing when you have enough.

The question to ask: "Am I likely to get fulfillment from this money spent in proportion to the resources that it represents?"

"Am I likely to get fulfillment from this money spent in proportion to my expenditure of my resource (my life-energy)?"

"Am I likely to get fulfillment from this money spent in proportion to the environment that it has created and will create after I am finished consuming it?"

What if answering those questions results in spending much less money, and yet feeling much more fulfilled and whole?

Savings is money not spent, resources not consumed and environment not created. It can instead be used to consume debt and reduce dependence on employment.

By saving money, you maintain the integrity of the Earth. You do not maintain the integrity of the Earth by spending money, no matter how "green" the product. All consumers are "green" consumers simply because the color of their money is green.

But what will we do if we do not consume? Who are we, if not consumers?

Answering that question is life’s greatest adventure. When we’re not consuming, we are creating, caring, communicating, communing, conserving, cooperating, being concerned, being conscious. What we have, when we let go of consuming, is integrity – wholeness.