While the higher ups are planning to roll out decisions that will affect every living human on the face of this planet (hopefully, they’ll make the right ones), we can individually make decisions that affect ourselves and our families.
Take, for instance, the fact that this pandemic has created a panic that resulted in people pretty much emptying store shelves and aisles of household staples, canned goods, packaged dry foods, household cleaning supplies, and toiletries for weeks now. Some items are coming back and staying for longer periods on the shelves, but others seem to disappear just as soon as the store personnel are able to place them out for purchase.
So, where does that leave a person who needs the items that are never on the store shelves these days? I guess that person does without or figures out other creative ways to meet the gap that certain hard-to-find products are leaving unfulfilled. Here’s an example for you: perhaps there are ways to substitute other products or cleanliness processes for a lack of toilet paper or no toilet paper at all, but who really wants to think of something like that. Pretty uncomfortable, isn’t it?
One thing that this pandemic has done is it’s opened up my eyes to the fact that our societies have too much dependency on other societies. Or, as individuals, we’re too dependent on everyone else to provide our products and services. We’re on the consumer trail, never researching and venturing into the self-rewarding territories of being producers and creators of our own stuff.
At least in my immediate community, I’m not seeing huge numbers of folks who grow and raise what they eat, build their own homes on their own land, make their own clothes, and create their own jobs with their own inventive products and services that can be sold for others’ uses.
In fact, what I’ve actually noticed is that there are a lot of people who’ve had to wait on, had their needs delayed, or been denied things that were necessary for maintaining their well-being or sustaining their very lives. Why? Well, consumers have to be provided for. And when they’re not provided for and don’t have access to those essentials that they need, then they’re at the mercy of the seller . . . those creators . . . those producers of the essential products and services in demand.
As I was thinking on the fact that many people are living in this very dependent state and aren’t functioning with any semblance of self-sufficiency, it’s no wonder that we can feel quite helpless and in a lack of control in just about every arena in our lives, while dealing with this pandemic.
And what are you going to do about it? Just wait to be handed whatever fallout our world’s current condition has in store for you (when in reality that fallout may not be the best situation for you and your family at all)?
But, wait. Let me turn the mood of today’s discussion, which is a part of The Art of People Business series. This blog post is going to be a message of positivity, of hope, of encouragement to control what you can control. Look. We don’t have to feel completely helpless. Let’s seek ways to control what we can control.
Now, I can already tell that this discussion is going to be a two-parter. Yes, indeed, it is. There’s so much that I want to relay to you, but I’m not going to get it all done today. So, I want to leave you with a little homework of sorts . . . some food for thought that I want you to take into consideration for the next week, up to the point I finish this post in next Thursday’s The Art of People Business Installment. And, your homework assignment comes in the form of some questions and some suggested examples to mull over in your mind.
The frame of mind that I’d like to encourage EVERYONE to assume (as much as they realistically can) is a mindset of what can I do to help myself sustain those basic needs (and even discretionary wants) in my life. And to seek ways to be a creator of as many things and processes (as is humanly possible) that will fulfill those needs and wants. What can I do to become more of a producer of goods and services versus always expecting someone or some entity to provide them for me? So, there’s the question part. And the producer examples that I want you to think about are as follows:
- Be an entrepreneur – create your own job. Create goods and services for your own personal use as well as for others’ use.
- Make your own food instead of relying on the ready-made items in the stores, fast food chains, and restaurant establishments to feed you.
- Grow and raise your own food. Check out my post, entitled Productivity Tuesday: No Better Time for a Garden.
- Make your own cleaning supplies. They’re scare right now in the stores. Check out my post, entitled Productivity Tuesday: A Reblog of Healthy Options You Can Find at the Store.
- Be an owner, not always a debtor. Work hard to get out of debt just as soon as you possibly can.
- Pandemics create new needs. Figure out how to meet those needs in creative ways to help yourself and others. Have you seen some of these creative ways in which people are making their own face masks, while the official ones are in limited supply?
- Don’t always run to the professionals for everything. Do your own due diligence and research ways to handle more of the processes that you call others to perform for you.
- Learn to relish teaching your child. You do it anyway as a parent/guardian, so extend yourself a little more and enjoy expounding the knowledge of the abc’s and 123’s to your child as well.
- Develop your tech skills. It seems that the times we’re living in call for us to work with, learn from, and communicate by technology. It ain’t going anywhere. But, always handle technology with care. Use it; don’t abuse it.
Which of the above suggestions will you take on? And, which ones are you already doing? I’d love to know.
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