Christmas Challenge

Yesterday it hit me while in the grocery store that something does not seem right about the Christmas / Holiday season.  After climbing over Christmas goods (junk) ready to go on the shelves to be sold, I thought to myself maybe its me getting older.  The more I thought I realized that wasn't the issue either as I love this time of year.  Something seems to water down the holiday and take the excitement away.  My favorite corporate America  Year after year, corporate stores seem to be in competition with each other on who can set up for Christmas the earliest and use the holiday to generate massive profits.  Its as if someone is sitting around and trying to figure out how to stress everyone out at the end of the year while making people feel bad if they don't by a second cousin a gift.  Don't get me wrong, I like gifts.  Instead of quantity and junk, a gift with meaning would be much better.  Now days quality time with family and friends would be the greatest gift considering how busy everyone is throughout the year.  Why has corporate media saturated the sacred holiday?

Here is the challenge:  Excluding children, I encourage everyone not to buy gifts, unless it has meaning, this holiday season.  Instead use the money to gather family and friends to a nice restaurant.  It would be a perfect time for families to use the money towards a nice family vacation.  Your still spending the money just in a different way.

Here are a few benefits.

• You will be stimulating the economy not the government.  
• Wall Street is not going to crash.  
• Last time I checked Walmart has three family memebers in the top 20 richest people in the world.  
• All the department stores, they have money as well.  
• Goods and clothing purchased at Walmarts and department stores are produced in another country not helping our recession.
• Spending money at a restaurant or hotel will help in the US workers in the service industry, for the most part.  People in the service industry are in the demographic that tends to spend money they earn so it will still make rich people remain rich.  Plus most have high amounts of debts so it could help the banks as this working segment could pay down their debt before going bankrupt.  Maybe it gets a few people off unemployment.
• Improve health.  I can't imagine the stress level of going to crowded malls and looking for THINGS.  Use the time to relax and catch up.  That means more plus a better return on investment of your time.
• Maybe buy a real Chrstmas tree that would help out a Michigan tree farmer versus buying a tree from a department store made in China.
• Enjoy quality time with family and friends.
• We could probably go on and on with the list but don't have time this morning.  Please comment ideas.  

I'm not trying to be a Scourge, actually the opposite.  Everyone celebrates the holidays in a different manner.  Take this time to evaluate if you are really having fun over the next couple of months.  My recommendation is do what you feel at heart and don't do anything to appease corporate America.  Time is the most valuable gift we can give to each other.  

Proposed Age increase for Social Security

Not much time to write but need to get this thought out.

Social Security age increase is scary news for America.  Well for a majority of the population, it all depends on your perception!  According to the government agency CDC, Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion, life expectancy was 77.7 in 2006.  A nice increase of 36% since 1929.  Not bad America.  We have to take in consideration the rapid growth in healthcare, especially with diagnosis and treatment.  Medical equipment has improved proactive diagnosis of life threatening situations.  I remember in the early 80's watching my mother battle cancer.  At the time, doctors and scientist were pioneers in understanding cancer and treatments were trial and error.  With that knowledge we can pretty much say the medical field has played a major role in the large increase in life expectancy.  It's hard to give much credit to the population as it didn't have much to do with the daily lifestyle.

Social Security - Highlights of deficit reduction proposals 

CDC Average Life Expectancy pg. 33

Over the next few years it will be interesting to see if life expectancy has peaked.  Right now people living past their 80's experienced the Great Depression and World War II.  That generation did not over eat or over buy as they experienced rationing of goods during the two devastating periods in history.  Basically their waist lines matched their life experiences between the late 1920's through mid 1940's.  In a way, the life struggles turned into natural preventive medicine.  I am not saying there were not obese people during the Great Depression generation, of course if they were overweight they were probably greedy as communities did a better job working together in the past compared to today.

Child obesity the statistics are more terrifying than on can imagine.  In 1980's child obesity was 6.5% compared to 19.6% in 2008 for 6 to 11 year olds.  The percentage for 12 to 19 year olds increased 5.0% to 18.1%.  Only a 200% increase, nothing too alarming.

Child Obesity - CDC

Where is this blog going?  If we use the stats provided by the government, trends would tell us that there is a high possibility that health and life expectancy will decline at a furious rate in the next 10 to 15 years.  Maybe preventive medicine has made society lazy.  In the next couple of decades we are not going to be fighting a battle against cancer and heart disease, its going to be going to battle against high blood pressure, diabetes, obesity. etc....  We already do but in the future it will be at an increased rate.  These symptoms will cause high stress on vital organs.  Jobs in the medical field are going to be in high demand.

In summary, go ahead and increase the Social Security age to 68 or 69.  Most of the population will have passed on from this life cycle and there will be plenty of money left for those people who take care of themselves.  And yes I do understand that if you do cardio and eat healthy it doesn't give you superman powers against cancer and life threatening diseases.  Exercise and eating healthy does decrease the odds  which is a fact.

Have a great day!  I'm out the door to jog four miles, pick up my friend Eric from the Atlanta airport, and do some bike riding later.

The Formula for Society to Evolve: Part 1

Those who are not receptive to other's perception, good or bad, show weakness expanding knowledge and compassion towards humanity. Learning from other's failures has led me to a better path in life away from my self destructive lifestyle. No one is perfect and no one has all the answers. Instead of interpreting a message as negative, shift your perception 180 degrees through the other person's eyes. There, you will realize negative is confused with honesty. And because self denial limits humans to seek the deep inner truths of the soul, honesty can be difficult to accept. If you find yourself getting defensive to honest feedback good chance that is an indicator to look yourself in the mirror, become humble, and use as a point in time for self improvement. Our time in this reality is short not to make the best of it yet most wait till their life cycle is coming to an end to self reflect, regret all the what ifs, and make good with personal grudges. The reason humans wait is "The Fear of Confrontation". This may be one of the most difficult concepts for us to master, no matter age, education level, race, government, or religion, because it is not taught from a book. It takes practice and patience to master. We could all continue to live by the old quote most of us are taught as children "If you don't have anything nice to say, then don't say anything at all." This way we can pretend to be happy in life and hide from honesty along with the ability to improve. Me, I refuse to accept negative cycles in life and I feel we can all do much better. To improve as a society, we need to support each other and give solutions on how to improve. Remember too many critical and over analytical comments will result in a negative outcome. So start your morning off right by taking baby steps to improve the world and yourself by smiling, saying hello to your neighbors and friends while realizing they have a lot going on in their life just like you.

Chris Rutledge