Personal Organization

Article Summary

John S Veitch
The Network Ambassador

If you engage in discussion with other people, you have some small level of protection against your own ideas getting off base.
Don't allow yourself to become isolated. Maintain and build your relationships with other people.
You must sustain yourself with ideas, with hopes and dreams and plans. Whatever the circumstances engage with an action plan that you are committed to.
We want to live lives where friends and family are important and where we can make a purposeful contribution to the economy and to community life.
We all need someone to love and a work to be devoted too. We want the opportunity to be a useful member of the community earning the respect of our peers.
Quality of life is important to us. We need personal health, good food and the ability to keep physically fit. Access to quality water, soil and air is important.

If unemployment of under-employment comes your way organize yourself and try to get the most out of both close family and wider family assets.
What can you do to make the best use of family capital goods? Does someone have time to make gardens on the property of other family members?
What skills, tools and capital goods exist that might allow family members to produce an income?
Re-examine your personal "story". How do you explain yourself to yourself, and how do you explain who you are to other people?
What you write is most important to you. So put effort into this task each time you do it. Try to write an honest assessment.
The more honest you can be with yourself the better prepared you'll be to make changes in your life if you need to.
We want people to tell us how good we are, even if it's not true. We want to be misled. The lies you tell yourself are the most difficult to detect.

Maslow's hierarchy of needs gives some guidance to setting some priorities for yourself.
Physical fitness is something you can build if you have time on your hands. When you know you can run for an hour, that does a lot for your confidence.
The groups you are a MEMBER of help to define you. The test is that other people who are themselves members, recognize you as a member.
If you are unemployed, don't hide away, join some groups, be active, become a member. There are many ways you can do that.

In my own city, we have established on online forum, "Canterbury Issues" that's quite active and discusses all sorts of local political issues.
In the current depression the forum is likely to become more and more useful to the district.
There is scope for people to form much smaller groups based on city blocks or perhaps on a street. There is a great deal people can do for each other.

Your Household is a Common. In the family the cost of decisions very low. We choose not to exchange money in return for services because it's easier.
Your household operates as "gift economy". Cooperation produces a shared surplus of goods and services which everyone can enjoy.
The useful common is a set of natural and community resources that are available to all community members. A gift economy at community level.
If you volunteer your time and skills to the useful common, that's good for you and for the community.
I've found Ryze is one place with active forums where I can learn a lot and make an active contribution.

If you need the original article it's here.