The Right to Vote is our True Wealth

What does voting have to do with prosperity? I believe that the right to vote is the true wealth of our country and our system of government. Having the choice of whether to vote or not and for whom makes us a rich nation even in challenging times. I heard about Blog the Vote and decided that I wanted to focus this post on voting. I have voted in every election since I was eligible and appreciate the opportunity to vote. I always feel so happy and proud on my way home from voting. It makes me feel that I have participated in something bigger than myself and that my vote makes a difference. Over the years I have had some friends and acquaintances who have chosen not to vote and who have told me that it didn't matter. This never made sense to me. Maybe that is in part because my grandparents on one side of my family and great-grandparents on the other side came to the United States from countries where voting was not an option and where they did not have the rights and privileges that we sometimes take for granted.

In recent months the upcoming election and related issues have seemed very divisive to me. At times I found that discussions across party lines were quite difficult. It was like some of my friends and I filtered our opinions of the candidates through lenses of varying thicknesses, from very different angles. With these filters in place at an almost unconscious level, it was just not possible to discuss the pros and cons of the opposing candidates in a meaningful way. As I started to realize the extent of the chasms between proponents of the two major parties, I decided to try to communicate as calmly and objectively as possible.

As I began to follow the election in more depth than usual for me, I was resolved to not buy in to the polarizing rhetoric and to stay positive. Good idea, but at times I found myself getting scared, annoyed, and upset. I followed politics and the ins and outs of the election news via the newspaper, TV, Twitter, and RSS feeds to my Google Reader. My friends across the country and I exchanged many emails. After a while, I found that I was feeling much more negatively about the opposing side than was useful. It became difficult for me to read articles that represented the other side.

One night last week I received an email from a friend that sarcastically delineated the differences between the two major parties and the "red" and "blue" states. It hit me as facetious, yet very humorous. Without really thinking, I forwarded this email to a lot of people. It had helped me release some of the tension that I'd been feeling about the upcoming election, so I passed it on. While one of my friends told me that she found it hilarious, another found it insensitive and offensive. She reminded me that although it's tempting to demonize, there are good people on both sides of the political spectrum. This is a friend who I have known for many years. I value her point of view and I appreciate that she reminded me of my original goal during this campaign--to stay calm and not get pulled in to the polarization. This reminded me that the deep divisiveness that has been part of "politics as usual" in recent years has lead me and others to be more sensitive to insults from the other side.

How does voting relate to prosperity? I'm sure that the true wealth in my life is the people who I know and friends I have. Even in this roller coaster of a campaign cycle my friends and family are what enliven and enrich my life.

Remember to VOTE tomorrow.


This post is written as part of the non-partisan, non-bashing Blog the Vote event. Please head over to Chasing Ray to see links to a wonderful collection of posts about voting.

Blog Action Day 2008: Poverty

Today is Blog Action Day 2008 and the topic this year is Poverty. Please see: http://blogactionday.org I'm still new at writing a blog and it's been a very long week and day. So this entry is going to be a short one. I wanted to participate in Blog Action Day and think about poverty in terms of my focus on developing abundance. With the recent rocky financial markets and falling home prices, its more important than ever to remember the poverty that exists and that is made even worse in such shaky times. Yes, it may be time to tighten our personal budget and to continue to work even if we were planning on retiring soon. Let's connect with our family and friends and be grateful for them as we deal with these challenges. Whatever shocks our personal finances may have sustained recently, let's remember those who are living even closer to the edge than us. Contribute to your local food banks or homeless shelters in whatever way works for you. Many of these organizations were already dealing with higher demand for fewer supplies before this latest news. Here's the link for Feeding America (formerly known as America's Second Harvest): http://www.feedingamerica.org/ They have a food bank locator and list ways to get involved or volunteer. You can Google homeless shelter in "your city" to get a list of local resources. I've always liked Habitat for Humanity. They can be found at: http://www.habitat.org/

Two of the basic building blocks of prosperity are gratitude and giving. Even in these uncertain financial times, let's be grateful for the people and situations and yes, the things in our lives. You can begin by starting a gratitude list. Just add one entry per day, then build up to more entries. More detail on this in future posts. My overall plan for this blog is to include some metaphysical tools for creating prosperity and balance that with a practical approach to personal finance. While planning my topics I continue on a steep learning curve regarding the mechanics of posting a blog. I finally figured out how to add a place to sign up to receive my blog via Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feed or email. These are on the right hand side of the page. Would you be interested in learning how to use positive affirmations? Or using essential oils and Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT) http://www.emofree.com to release old patterns of thought and choose new ones? Please let me know. Thanks. Here's to a sunnier economy. Let's work on creating it together.

Welcome & How I discovered blogs

Welcome to my blog. It's called Prosperity-plus because my topic is prosperity and so much more. In future posts I'll fill in the details of my journey in learning about and developing prosperity and abundance and share simple techniques that you can use too. I plan on also sharing about the so much more or "plus" part of this blog. That includes intuition and how to develop it, and lots of info about breathwork, meditation, inner guidance and awareness, and other ways to achieve balance and focus in this busy, fast-moving world. This week a little about how I discovered blogs and blogging.

What a week. I just learned about and joined Facebook and found some friends and groups that I hadn't connected with in quite a while. Just a few weeks ago I discovered blogs and now I'm starting my own. Quite a learning curve. Here's how I found out about blogs. I was in a doctor's office reading a magazine article about food & food blogs. One especially interested me, so I looked it up on the web. It's Coconut & Lime by Rachel Rappaport. She writes an award-winning food blog that includes all her own recipes. I wanted to receive her recipes, so I searched and signed up for email updates. I get a lot of email newsletters in my inbox everyday. Every once in a while I unsubscribe and cut down on the amount of email that I receive.

Anyway, a few days later I was reading about blogs and somehow found ProBlogger by Darren Rowse. It's great and he explains all kinds of things about blogging, including the benefits of RSS feeds. He has a great article on this at What is RSS? It convinced me to replace some of my email newsletters with RSS from those sites. This way I can just go to Google Reader and scan the list of posts and select just those I'd like to read. It's so much faster than looking up sites and it's unclogged my inbox. So at 59, I'm finally going beyond simple email and web searches. Hooray.
More soon
Deborah