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Prosperity 2010: The Year of Puppies, Unicorns, Rainbows, Wonderment and Light

I am grateful to 2009 and the lessons I've learned but I still have to stifle the urge to tell 2009 to #suckit! Annus horriblus or a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad year - call it what you will but I'm saying good bye to 2009 and hoping declaring 2010 will be annus mirabilis.

Like many, I don't do resolutions. In the past few years I've taken to the practice of choosing a guiding word or theme for the year. Last year my word was fearless. I plastered it on my vision board and focused on living fearlessly (which to me means living in love because I believe in the concept of love and fear being the two basic emotions that are the basis for everything in life). The problem is that in order to live fearlessly you have to have the opportunity to meet fear with love, that is, to love the scary.

And 2009 served up the scary by the metric ton. The good news is that I not only survived but I did a pretty good job of building my fearless muscle. But I am ready to say lesson learned and move on. Move on to easier, happier and less challenging times.

So I'm declaring my 2010 hashtag: #puppyunicornrainbow. Srsly.

O.K., not so seriously. But my carefully chosen word of the year is prosperity. The online Merriam-Webster dictionary defines prosperity as: the condition of being successful or thriving; especially : economic well-being

And while I certainly chose my word, in part, for the love of money aspect of its meaning that is not all. I want to thrive and I want to help myself and others prosper - in joy, in knowledge, in fun, in entertainment, in connections, in laughter and in life. Financial security and abundance can help facilitate all that and more.

I want a more prosperous world in addition to a more prosperous me. I want a world where people flourish and thrive because they have enough wealth to feed themselves and their family, to have clean water to drink, to have access to health care and medicine and education. Certainly there are other necessary conditions but economic empowerment is a huge block in that foundation.

I want more prosperous colleagues. I want to see those around me and those whom I admire from afar to have the confidence to charge what they are worth and get it, to - in the words of Havi Brooks - biggify their thing and for everyone who wants to engage them, be they big corporations or individuals, to have the funds to support healthy commerce and exchanges of goods and services.

I want a prosperous economy that supports governments so that they can do the things they are charged to do like maintaining infrastructure and that which we want them to do like supporting services for battered women and sick, hungry and homeless people.

I want individuals to have meaningful work to do so not only can they earn a living but so that they can have meaning and purpose to their days that many find is sucked from their souls by endless unemployment. No more living in a tiny plastic bunk or pimping out a Chihuahua to pay the rent. It is obscene that in the United States we have millions of people with no income other than a couple of hundred dollars a month in food stamps.

You may have noticed that I mentioned, but did not choose as others often do, abundance. I had among the good and the lessons and the strength and character building experiences of 2009 an abundance of suck. Abundance can bring much that I do not want. I purposefully chose prosperity instead. 2010 is only about the does-not-suck, dammit!

So my darlings, go boldly forth into 2010 to live long and prosper, beautiful people.

Much love,
Maria

Thank You, Recession

Interesting lessons from the Argentinian economic crisis earlier this decade. Plus thoughts on ways in which we can ride out the recession through community.

Credit Card Companies: One Way Or Another

They're gonna getcha, getcha, getcha...

Credit card legislation that is good news for consumers should be heading to President Obama's desk shortly. This is on top of already passed reforms that will kick in next year. Additional legislation was needed because banks are seemingly addicted to fees and practices designed to squeeze every dime possible from card holders regardless of how deceptive and unfair they might be.

The card companies, however, are a step ahead of legislators and are already gearing up to squeeze "deadbeats" (in credit card parlance: people who pay their balances in full every month and don't rack up fees and interest) with more unfavorable terms. And for the "good" customers, they are perfecting their data mining techniques (AKA unbelievably all up in your business) and psychological manipulation skills so they can better mess with the minds of customers.

The one bright spot in all of this is that at least overwhelming political pressure and will was brought to bear on our representatives so that they could no longer side with corporations and felt like they had no choice but to vote in the interest and with the desire of their constituents. It gives me hope.